ALCOTT  MEMOIRS 

POSTHUMOUSLY  COMPILED  FROM  PAPERS 
JOURNALS  AND   MEMORANDA  OF  THE  LATE 

DR.  FREDERICK  L.  H.  WILLIS 

BY  E.  W.  L.  &  H.  B. 


BOSTON:  RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

TORONTO:  THE  COPP,  CLARK  COMPANY,  LIMITED 


Copyright,  1915,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


THE  GORHAM  PRESS,  BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


PRELUDE 

SO  much  has  been  written  of  the  famous  men 
and  women  of  New  England  whose  lives 
compassed  approximately  the  years   1800 
to  1870,  that  little  if  anything  remains  to 
be  told.    No  pretense  is  here  made  to  supply  such 
deficiency  if  it  exists. 

This  little  book  aims  at  naught  else  than  a  pre 
sentation  of  a  personal  point  of  view  wherein  alone 
lies  whatever  of  originality  it  may  contain.  It  in 
no  sense  presumes  to  offer  original  matter  save 
from  the  angle  of  individually  recorded  impres 
sion.  I  offer  its  pages  as  a  tribute  to  my  father 
and  not  as  a  contribution  to  the  already  extensive 
literature  concerning  the  early  literary  period  of 
New  England.  So  far  as  possible  dates  and  facts 
have  been  verified,  but  no  exhaustive  effort  has 
been  made  to  present  historic  or  biographic  mat 
ter,  the  object  being  to  preserve  neither  people  nor 
events,  but  my  father's  memory  of  them. 

I  have  eliminated  all  references  that  might  be 
deemed  critical  or  over-laudatory,  that  might  create 
controversy,  or  that  touched  upon  the  more  sacred 
human  relationships,  believing  this  would  have  been 

3 


Prelude 

my  father's  wish.  For  some  years  prior  to  his 
death,  my  father  planned  writing  his  personal 
recollections  of  a  long,  varied  and  unusual  life  dur 
ing  which  he  was  associated  more  or  less  intimately 
with  distinguished  men  and  women  in  America  and 
Europe.  To  this  end  he  made  many  notes  from 
some  of  which  the  following  pages  have  been 
educed.  The  infirmities  of  age  made  writing  a 
great  exertion  and  prevented  the  carrying  out  of 
his  purpose  save  in  a  preliminary  way,  and  his  pa 
pers  were  left  in  great  confusion.  Through  the  pa 
tient  effort  of  Henri  Bazin  these  notes  and  memo 
randa,  many  of  them  hardly  legible  because  of  the 
tremulous  handwriting  sometimes  employed  dur 
ing  sleepless  nights  and  hours  of  great  pain,  have 
been  copied,  arranged  in  sequential  and  chronolog 
ical  order,  and  brought  into  a  presentable  whole.  It 
may  be  that  my  father  has  quoted  some  of  the  mat 
ter  herein  presented ;  it  is  not  claimed  that  the  notes 
he  left  were  in  any  way  ready  for  the  presentation 
he  intended.  I  offer  no  apology  along  these  lines 
because  I  well  know  the  following  pages  are  frag 
mentary  and  merely  suggestive  of  what  he  would 
have  written.  They  have  been  gathered  as  one 
would  gather  the  fallen  petals  of  a  rose  to  make  fra 
grant  a  roseless  hour. 

My  father's  long  life  can  best  be  described  in  the 
words,  charity,  integrity,  courtesy.     Through  the 

4 


Prelude 

vicissitudes  of  an  unusually  active,  cosmopolitan 
life,  through  a  long  period  of  ill  health  and  phys 
ical  infirmity,  up  to  the  last  moments  of  his  last 
illness  he  never  faltered  in  his  thought  of  others, 
in  his  chivalrous  bearing  and  in  the  kindliness  and 
love  that  radiated  from  his  personality,  and  his  life 
was  crowned  writh  the  best  of  earth's  blessings — the 
love  of  all  who  knew  him. 

EDITH  WILLIS  LINN. 

Eden  Glen,  Glenora,  N.  Y. 
November,  1915. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     CHILDHOOD 11 

II.    How  I  MET  THE  ALCOTT  FAMILY     ....  19 

III.  FAMILY  LIFE 24 

IV.  LOUISA  AND  HER  SISTERS 35 

V.    ALCOTT  THE  PHILOSOPHER 46 

VI.    ALCOTT  THE  ABOLITIONIST 65 

VII.     FRUITLANDS 80 

VIII.     EMERSON 87 

IX.     THOREAU 91 

X.     MARGARET  FULLER 95 

XI.     HAWTHORNE 98 

XII.    THOMAS  STARR  KING 100 

POSTSCRIPT — THE  INFLUENCES  THAT  MOLD  104 


ALCOTT  MEMOIRS 


ALCOTT  MEMOIRS 


CHILDHOOD 

FREDERICK    LLEWELLYN     HO- 
VEY   WILLIS,    a   learned   and   mod 
est     man     beloved     of     all     who     knew 
him,  died  in  Rochester,  N".  Y.,  on  Eas 
ter   Sunday,   April   12th,   1914,   aged  eighty-four 
years   and  three  months.     He   was   a   Unitarian 
clergyman,  a  doctor  of  medicine,  a  lecturer  of  some 
renown,  a  nature  lover,  and  a  writer  of  power  and 
charm. 

From  the  age  of  fourteen  to  that  of  nearly  twen 
ty-four,  he  was  constantly  and  intimately  connected 
with  the  Alcott  family,  as  friend,  boarder,  or  guest 
in  their  home.  During  that  period  he  was  loved 
and  regarded  as  a  son  by  the  Sage  of  Still  River 
Village  and  Concord  and  by  his  wife,  the  "Mar- 
mee"  of  "Little  Women,"  and  was  also,  during 
the  Still  River  summer  of  1844  and  the  several 
successive  summers  at  Concord,  the  only  boy  play 
mate  of  Louisa  Alcott  and  her  sisters,  with  the 

11 


Alcott  Memoirs 

single  exception  of  William,  son  of  Charles  Lane. 

Despite  this  authenticated  fact,  Dr.  Willis  never 
laid  positive  claim  to  the  character  of  "Laurie,"  the 
hero  of  Louisa  Alcott's  classic,  although  he  would 
smile  in  his  charming  manner  when,  now  and  then, 
in  public  print  or  conversation,  the  claim  was  made 
for  him  by  others. 

The  purpose  of  this  little  book  is  not  to  do  so 
either.  It  aims  but  to  carry  out  the  intention  of 
his  declining  years:  the  recording  of  memoirs  of 
an  interesting  period  in  his  childhood  and  youth, 
with  his  retrospect  of  this  period's  influences  upon 
a  sensitive  and  beautiful  nature  through  close  asso 
ciation  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott  and  contact  in 
the  Alcott  homes  with  Emerson,  Thoreau,  Mar 
garet  Fuller,  and  other  New  Englanders  who  have 
left  fame  and  name  in  American  Letters. 

Dr.  Willis  was  born  in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  Jan 
uary  29th,  1830.  He  was  the  only  child  of  Lo 
renzo  Dow  Willis  and  his  wife  Eleanor  Hovey. 
Lorenzo  Dow  Willis  was  a  cousin  of  Nathaniel 
Parker  Willis  of  early  New  England  literary  fame, 
and  the  ancestors  of  both  him  and  his  wife  were 
among  the  early  settlers  of  New  England.  He 
was  a  liberal  in  religion  and  the  marriage  was 
strongly  opposed  by  the  Hovey  family  upon  re 
ligious  grounds,  but  love  prevailed.  Lorenzo 
Dow  Willis  was  a  prosperous  merchant  of  Cam- 

12 


Childhood 

bridge  at  the  time  of  his  marriage,  but  shortly 
after,  his  partner  in  business  absconding  with  all 
the  funds  of  their  enterprise,  he  was  thrown  into 
a  debtor's  prison. 

The  Hovey  family  consisted  of  several  brothers 
who  were  men  of  more  than  usual  wealth  and  could 
have  easily  settled  the  affairs  of  their  sister's  hus 
band  had  they  been  so  inclined,  but  in  those  days 
to  be  a  liberal  was  an  unpardonable  crime,  and 
the  prisoner  for  debt  was  in  their  eyes  receiving 
what  he  richly  deserved.  Dr.  Willis's  father  was 
released  from  the  debtor's  prison  only  in  time  to  be 
present  at  the  birth  of  his  son.  The  young  wife 
and  mother  died  the  third  day  after  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two. 

Llewellyn,  as  he  was  known,  was  brought  up  by 
his  grandmother,  the  wife  of  Ebeneza  Hovey,  who 
before  her  marriage  was  Sally  Greenwood  of  Sa 
lem,  the  granddaughter  of  Colonel  Darby  of  Sa 
lem,  a  famous  trader  of  whom  it  was  said,  that  he 
could  count  nearly  a  hundred  ships  in  the  different 
ports  of  the  world  loading  or  discharging  cargo  at 
any  time. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  Hovey  household  was 
one  of  extreme  bigotry.  Ebeneza  Hovey  was  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  Baptist  Church  of  Cam 
bridge  and  the  society  met  at  his  house  for  service 
until  they  were  financially  strong  enough  to  build 

13 


Alcott  Memoirs 

the  First  Baptist  Church  in  Cambridge.  He  and 
his  eight  children  constituted  the  choir  of  this 
church.  All  possessed  fine  voices  and  several 
played  upon  instruments.  Indeed,  the  music  of 
the  family  seems  to  have  been  its  one  bright  fea 
ture.  The  grandmother  had  a  remarkable  voice 
and  sang  many  curious  old  hymns  now  obsolete, 
among  them: 

THE  STRANGER  AND  His  FRIEND 

A  poor  wayfaring  man  of  grief 
Hath  often  crossed  me  on  my  way,, 
Who  sued  so  humbly  for  relief, 
That  I  could  never  answer  "nay": 
I  had  not  power  to  ask  his  name, 
Whither  he  went  or  whence  he  came, 
Yet  was  there  something  in  his  eye 
That  won  my  heart,  I  knew  not  why. 

Once  when  my  scanty  meal  was  spread 
He  entered;  not  a  word  he  spake; — 
Just  famishing  for  want  of  bread, 
I  gave  him  all;  he  blessed  it,  brake 
And  ate,  but  gave  me  part  again ; 
Mine  was  an  Angel's  portion  then, 
For  while  I  fed  with  eager  haste, 
That  crust  was  manna  to  my  taste. 

And  so  on  through  all  the  seven  verses  of  James 
Montgomery's  quaint  old  poem  set  to  music  of  a 
lilting,  haunting,  murmurous  melody;  and  another 
beginning, 

14 


Childhood 

The  Lord  into  his  garden  comes,, 
The  spices  yield  a  rich  perfume, 
The  lilies  grow  and  thrive-ive-ive, 
The  lilies  grow  and  thrive. 
Refreshing  showers  of  grace  divine, 
From  Jesus  flows  to  every  vine, 
Which  makes  the  dead  revive-ive-ive, 
Which  makes  the  dead  revive. 

As  an  infant  Llewellyn  was  given  to  a  mother 
of  twins  to  nurse,  who  nourished  and  raised  all 
three  children.    When  the  boy  was  old  enough  to 
be  weaned,  he  was,  because  he  was  a  delicate  child 
and  his  father  had  died  meanwhile,  sent  to  board 
with  an  old  woman  in  the  country.     This  woman, 
of  whose  name  there  is  no  record,  gloried  in  a 
lovely  old-fashioned  garden  in  which  she  raised  a 
profusion  of  medicinal  herbs,  and  every  flower  that 
would  grow  in  the  climate  of  Eastern  Massachu 
setts.     Here  the  first  lasting  impression  came  to 
the  brain  of  the  boy,  for  he  remembered  toddling 
after  her  as  she  labored  in  the  garden  among  her 
loved  flowers,  his  reward  for  good  behavior  being 
the  privilege  of  patting  the  camomile  bed  to  pro 
duce  more  luxuriant  growth.     While  he  was  too 
young  to  remember  her  name,  since  he  was  taken 
from  her  care  while  yet  very  tiny,  it  was  in  this 
garden  and  in  the  company  of  this  old  woman  that 
he  gained  his  initial  love  of  flowers  and  his  in 
terest  in  plants  which  not  only  grew  to  a  science 

15 


Alcott  Memoirs 

with  him  and  remained  a  loved  passion  all  his  life, 
but  was  the  original  stepping  stone  towards  his 
unique  and  fascinating  lectures  upon  materia-med- 
ica,  when  Professor  of  that  Chair  in  Mrs.  Lozier's 
Medical  College  for  Women  in  New  York  City,  the 
first  Woman's  Medical  College  in  the  United 
States;  lectures  in  which  his  rare  knowledge  of 
plants  played  so  interesting  and  instructive  a  part. 

When  he  was  about  four  years  of  age  he  was 
brought  into  the  household  of  his  grandmother  and 
grandfather  in  Cambridge.  Preparation  for  the 
life  hereafter  was  the  dominating  factor  there.  The 
fear  of  God's  wrath  was  constantly  impressed  upon 
all  the  family,  including  the  sensitive,  delicate  boy, 
who  was  of  their  blood  yet  alien  to  them.  Prayers 
were  constant;  the  most  rigorous  censorship  was 
maintained  regarding  books,  and  upon  Saturday 
nights  every  printed  thing  was  placed  out  of  sight 
except  the  Bible,  ''Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  Bax 
ter's  "Saint's  Rest." 

But  from  the  New  England  attic  have  emerged 
many  wonderful  fairies  with  gifts  to  the  lives  of 
men,  and  this  boy  whose  nature  was  dwarfed  and 
narrowed  by  the  severity  of  his  surroundings  was 
led  by  them  to  discover  a  box  of  books  that  had  be 
longed  to  his  atheistic  father.  No  complete  record 
remains  of  their  titles ;  memory  holds  some  of  them. 
There  was  the  "Mysteries  of  Udolpho,"  "Swiss 

16 


Childhood 

Family  Robinson,"  "The  Boy's  Own  Book,""Alon- 
zo  and  Melissa,"  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  and  Charles  Dickens's  novels  and,  probably 
the  books  that  most  helped  to  mold  and  fashion 
the  mind  of  the  boy,  all  the  writings  of  that  arch- 
infidel,  that  great  lovable,  brave,  patriotic  man, 
Tom  Paine.  There  in  the  attic  the  boy  pored  over 
these  pages  and,  not  content  with  the  hours  stolen 
from  lessons  or  play,  read  nights  by  candle  light. 
Xo  lights  were  allowed  in  the  bedrooms  of  himself 
or  his  cousins,  so  he  picked  up  discarded  pieces  of 
brass  and  iron  which  he  sold  to  a  junk  dealer  and 
with  the  proceeds  bought  candles.  In  the  same 
way  he  secured  money  for  surreptitious  visits  to 
the  Boston  Museum,  where  his  soul  was  awakened 
and  stirred  by  the  fine  old  English  tragedies  acted 
by  William  Warren  and  Mrs.  Vincent  and  the 
Shakespearean  reproductions  of  Forrest  and  Kean, 
and  his  imagination  thrilled  by  the  awesome  wax 
works  with  which  the  mysterious  upper  portions 
of  the  Museum  were  stored. 

The  boy  received  his  first  instruction  in  the  pub 
lic  schools  of  Cambridge,  and  was  later  apprenticed 
to  a  Cambridge  apothecary.  When  he  was  seven,  he 
"got  religion"  in  the  old-fashioned  sense.  It  was 
a  great  struggle  to  make  himself  feel  all  the  emo 
tions  that  were  deemed  necessary  in  his  grandfa 
ther's  house,  but  he  thought  he  achieved  it  and  was 

17 


Alcott  Memoirs 

very  proud. 

He  was  so  very  devout  that  the  women  of  the 
Baptist  Society  patted  him  upon  the  cheek  and 
called  him  "a  little  lamb  of  God."  Yet  he  did  not 
quite  understand,  and  there  was  in  his  nature  an 
unconscious  resistance  to  the  bigotry  and  fanati 
cism  of  the  household ;  for  he  remembered  sitting  up 
in  his  little  bed  upon  Sunday  nights,  after  listen 
ing  to  the  portrayal  of  the  wrathful  God  of  the 
Puritans,  and  shaking  his  little  fist  at  the  darkness, 
saying  aloud,  "God,  I  hate  you,"  and  then  being 
very  much  afraid. 

At  the  age  of  twelve,  because  of  his  assertion  of 
his  disbelief  in  foreordination  he  was  expelled  from 
the  church  as  a  heretic.  He  said,  "I  told  them  I 
could  not  fore-ordain  a  creature  to  eternal  damna 
tion  and  I  was  quite  sure  God  was  as  loving  as  I, 
and  they  put  me  out  of  the  church."  That  such 
a  thing  could  happen  to  a  child  of  such  tender  years 
seems  to  us  to-day  impossible.  Its  effect  upon  the 
boy's  character  was  to  sadden  and  subdue  and  en 
hance  a  natural  tendency  to  introspection  and  sub 
jective  study.  His  meeting  with  the  Alcotts  two 
years  after  came  to  him  as  a  burst  of  sunshine  upon 
a  gray  day  and  in  a  field  already  prepared,  the 
seeds  of  Mr.  Alcott's  philosophy  and  the  loving  in 
fluence  of  Mrs.  Alcott's  motherly  care  found  ready 
root. 

18 


II 

HOW  I  MET  THE  ALCOTT  FAMILY 

DR.  WILLIS  thus  describes  his  meeting 
with  the  Alcott  family  in  1844.    The  ac 
count  is  in  his  own  handwriting,  tremu 
lous  yet  firm  withal,  written  very  shortly 
before  his  death,  and  after  he  had  passed  his  eighty- 
third  year:     "A  delicate  boy  of  fourteen,  I  was 
journeying  in  early  June,  1844,  from  Boston  to 
Still  River  Village  in  the  town  of  Harvard,  in  one 
of  the  lumbering  stage-coaches  which  at  that  time 
had  not  been  displaced  by  the  steam  railway,  save 
upon  a  few  important  thoroughfares,  to  spend  my 
long  summer  vacation  as  boarder  in  the  home  of  a 
relative. 

It  chanced  after  one  of  the  stops  made  by  the 
stage,  that  upon  starting  again,  the  fingers  of  my 
right  hand  were  caught  in  the  closing  door.  I 
fainted  from  the  intense  pain  and  upon  my  con 
sciousness  returning,  I  opened  my  eyes  upon  what 
seemed  the  dearest,  kindest,  most  motherly  face  I 
had  ever  beheld,  looking  into  mine,  as  a  lady  held 
me  in  an  embrace  as  tender  and  as  pitying  as  if 
I  had  been  one  of  her  own  bantlings,  rather  than 

19 


Alcott  Memoirs 

a  little  orphan  stranger  traveling  alone  of  whom 
she  knew  nothing. 

It  was  Mrs.  Alcott,  who  was  returning  from  Bos 
ton,  wrhere  she  had  been  to  solicit  aid  in  her  then  con 
stant  extremity  from  wealthy  relatives  and  friends. 
With  ready  tact,  to  divert  my  mind  from  my  suffer 
ing  fingers,  she  began  to  describe  to  me  in  lovable 
manner  her  four  girls  at  home ;  and  she  told  me  sto 
ries  of  their  juvenile  pranks  until  the  pain  was  a 
forgotten  thing  and  the  remaining  hours  of  the 
journey  had  been  delightfully  whiled  away. 

When  the  stage  drew  up  at  her  door  there  burst 
out  four  merry-hearted,  bright-eyed,  laughing  girls 
—Anna,  Louisa,  Lizzie  and  May — my  first  sight 
of  the  Meg,  Jo,  Beth  and  Amy,  immortalized  after 
wards  in  "Little  Women."  Then  ensued  the  pret 
tiest  possible  struggle,  while  the  driver  was  taking- 
down  the  old  haircloth  trunk,  for  "Marmee's"  first 
kiss.  The  next  day,  as  I  had  promised,  I  called 
upon  the  "Little  Women."  School  had  just  closed 
in  Still  River  and  the  long  summer  vacation  had  be 
gun.  I  shall  never  forget  the  awkwardness  of  this 
first  call.  The  mother  was  absent,  only  the  children 
were  at  home.  I  was  a  city  boy — a  new  genus  to 
the  young  ladies — widely  different  in  dress  and 
manner  from  the  boys  of  the  village  school,  and  as 
I  stood,  a  focus  of  concentrated  gaze  from  four 
pairs  of  bright  mischievous  eyes,  not  a  syllable  be- 

20 


How  I  Met  the  Alcott  Family 

ing  uttered  meanwhile  by  any  one  of  their  owners, 
I  felt  as  if  I  were  being  weighed  in  the  balance. 
I  could  feel  the  hot  blood  mounting  to  my  cheek 
and  brow.  At  length  Louisa,  wrho  suddenly  seemed 
to  realize  the  embarrassment  of  the  situation  for  me, 
proposed  an  adjournment  to  the  garden.  There 
the  ice  was  broken,  relieving  seemingly  strained  re 
lations,  and  wye  were  comrades  from  that  time  forth. 
This  first  interview  was  ever  after  the  subject  of 
laughing  comment  with  us.  Within  a  week  I  had 
secured  my  grandmother's  permission  to  change 
my  boarding  place,  and  thus  live  at  Mrs.  Alcott's 
house. 

There  was  a  beautiful  sheet  of  water  in  among 
the  hills  about  a  mile  from  the  village,  unprosaic- 
ally  called  Bare  Hill  Pond.  Here  wras  our  favorite 
resort.  Thither  we  went,  Anna,  Louisa  and  my 
self,  the  other  two  girls  being  deemed  too  young, 
passing  day  after  day,  carrying  our  luncheon  and 
whatever  Mrs.  Alcott  thought  wise  in  the  way  of 
wraps,  and  story  books,  in  a  little  four-wheeled 
cart.  And  here,  through  all  the  bright  days  of 
July  and  August,  we  lived  in  the  fairy  land  of 
imagination,  a  life  of  childish  romance.  We  chris 
tened  a  favorite  nook,  a  beautiful  rocky  glen  car 
peted  with  moss  and  adorned  with  ferns  opening 
upon  the  water's  edge,  "Spiderland."  I  was  the 
King  of  the  realm,  Anna  was  the  Queen,  and  Lou- 

21 


Alcott  Memoirs 

isa,  the  Princess  Royal;  we  never  laid  these  char 
acters  aside  as  long  as  we  were  in  the  "Royal 
Realm."  Louisa  had  even  then  begun  to  string 
her  rhymes  and  weave  her  little  romances,  though 
but  twelve  years  old.  For  years  afterwards  we 
talked  of  that  summer  as  the  golden  era  of  our 
lives. 

I  was  then  too  young  to  realize  the  financial 
struggle  Mrs.  Alcott  was  passing  through  to  keep 
her  little  family  together;  but  after  they  removed 
to  Concord  I  spent  the  vacations  of  several  suc 
cessive  summers  with  them,  when  I  realized  the 
whole  situation  most  forcibly;  and  as  much  as  I 
reverenced  and  admired  Mr.  Alcott — he  had  a  pe 
culiar  charm  for  the  young — I  remember  feeling 
a  burning  sense  of  indignation  at  his  seeming  in 
difference  to  the  domestic  burden  that  was  resting 
upon  his  devoted  wife  and  the  actual  poverty  that 
enshrouded  the  little  family.  Mrs.  Alcott  became 
very  fond  of  me  and  truly  looked  upon  me  as  a  son. 
As  I  look  back  I  can  think  of  but  one  other  woman 
writh  whom  I  came  in  contact  during  my  entire  life 
who  so  fully  represented  sympathy,  love,  and  ten 
derness. 

During  the  times  when  burdens  pressed  heavily 
upon  Mrs.  Alcott  through  the  poverty  and  frequent 
actual  want  that  was  ever  at  the  door,  she  had 
always  a  word  of  counsel,  encouragement  and 

22 


How  I  Met  the  Alcott  Family 

cheer.  She  never  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  an  appeal 
from  whomsoever  it  might  have  been  and  frequently 
shared  her  own  scanty  store  with  others  aside  from 
her  own. 

I  think  I  was  the  only  person,  apart  from  her 
family,  in  whom  she  confided,  a  confidence  years 
alone  did  not  warrant.  I  remember  one  occasion 
while  she  was  talking  to  me  she  suddenly  burst  into 
tears,  which  was  a  thing  quite  unusual.  Just  then 
Anna  came  in  announcing  a  caller.  A  most  kindly 
looking  and  motherly  woman  entered,  garbed  sim 
ply  as  a  Quakeress.  Seeing  the  tears  upon  Mrs. 
Alcott's  cheeks,  she  said: 

"Abba  Alcott,  what  is  the  matter  with  thee?" 

"Oh,  nothing  much.  But  much  or  little,  this  dear 
boy  is  my  little  comforter." 

It  was  thus  that  I  met  for  the  first  time  Lydia 
Maria  Child,  whose  brother,  Dr.  Converse  Francis, 
was  afterwards  my  instructor  at  Harvard.  He  and 
Mrs.  Child  were  my  warm  friends  the  remainder 
of  their  lives." 


23 


Ill 

FAMILY  LIFE 

THE  following  summers,  four  in  number, 
Dr.  Willis  passed  with  the  Alcotts  at  Con 
cord,  and  later,  when  they  moved  to  Bos 
ton,  boarded  with  them  while  preparing 
for  Harvard  College  Divinity  School,  and  acting 
as  amanuensis  for  Thomas  Starr  King.     He  be 
came  their  most  intimate  young  friend  and  was 
closely  associated  with  every  detail  of  their  life 
struggle  with  the  poverty  that  only  ceased  with 
the  success  of  "Little  Women"  in  1868.    Through 
this  intimate  association  he  was  informed  in  full  de 
tail  of  the  financial  perplexities  as  they  had  existed 
before  he  met  the  Alcotts  in  1844. 

In  his  notes  upon  the  Concord  period,  Dr.  Willis 
records : 

"Through  continued  and  dire  poverty  Mrs.  Al- 
cott  was  sunshine  itself  to  her  children  and  to  me, 
whom  she  looked  upon  as  a  son.  No  matter  how 
weary  she  might  be  with  the  washing  and  ironing, 
the  baking  and  cleaning,  it  was  all  hidden  from  the 
group  of  girls  with  whom  she  was  always  ready  to 
enter  into  fun  and  frolic,  as  though  she  never  had 

24 


Family  Life 

a  care.  Afternoons  we  usually  gathered  in  the 
quaint,  simple,  charming,  old-fashioned  parlor  at 
Hillside — Hawthorne's  old  home — bought  by  Mrs. 
Alcott  with  the  pittance  she  received  from  her  fa 
ther's  estate  made  sufficient  for  the  purpose  by  a 
donation  of  $500  from  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  To 
this  day,  over  all  the  years,  that  simple  Concord 
room  with  its  pretty  chintz  curtains,  its  cool  mat 
ting,  its  few  fine  engravings,  its  Parian  busts  of 
Clytie  and  Pestalozzi,  and  of  Una  and  the  Lion 
(the  latter  given  Mrs.  Alcott  by  Una  Hawthorne) , 
its  books  and  cut  flowers,  and  its  indescribable  at 
mosphere  of  refinement,  is  deeply  engraved  within 
my  memory  as  an  expression  of  inherent  simplicity 
and  charm. 

One  of  our  number,  usually  myself,  would  read 
aloud  while  the  mother  and  the  two  elder  daugh 
ters  engaged  in  the  family  sewing.  Thus  we  read 
Scott,  Dickens,  Cooper,  Hawthorne,  Shakespeare 
and  the  British  poets,  and  George  Sand's  "Con- 
suelo."  Mrs.  Alcott's  comments  upon  and  expla 
nations  of  our  reading,  when  we  questioned,  were 
most  instructive  to  us  in  beauty  of  expression, 
and  revealed  the  wealth  of  her  own  richly  stored 
mind.  Mr.  Alcott's  table  talks  were  constantly  de 
lightful.  It  was  particularly  at  these  times  he  took 
especial  care  to  so  discourse  that  the  youngest  lis 
tener  might  comprehend  and  fully  understand.  I 

25 


Alcott  Memoirs 

have  seen  him  take  an  apple  upon  his  fork,  and 
while  preparing  it  for  eating,  give  a  fascinating 
little  lecture  as  to  its  growth  and  development  from 
germ  to  matured  fruit,  his  language  quaintly  beau 
tiful  and  charmingly  poetical. 

A  child  in  speaking  of  him  in  my  hearing  said: 
"I  love  to  hear  him  talk.  He  is  so  plain  and  tells 
me  much  I  didn't  know,  fastening  it  on  to  what 
I  know." 

He  rarely  talked  of  else  at  table  but  nature's 
wonderful  and  benevolent  processes  in  preparing 
food  for  the  maintenance  of  man  and  in  minister 
ing  to  his  taste  through  her  countless  presentations 
of  the  beautiful.  Indeed  his  great  love  of  nature, 
his  keen,  close  observation  of  all  her  processes  and 
his  power  of  expression,  all  combined  to  make  him 
charmingly  instructive  and  entertaining. 

Even  in  my  youth  Mr.  Alcott  seemed  to  me 
always  strangely  out  of  place  in  the  midst  of  the 
practical  utilitarianism  of  the  19th  century,  and 
out  of  place,  too,  clad  in  modern  broadcloth.  He 
should  have  been  of  the  days  of  Socrates  or  Seneca 
and  worn  the  flowing  robes  of  classic  Greece  or  the 
toga  of  ancient  Rome.  He  was  possessed  of  a  cap 
tivating  yet  almost  childlike  simplicity  of  manner 
and  bore  about  with  him  an  air  of  serene  repose, 
contrasting  sharply  with  the  bustling,  business-like 
manner  of  most  of  the  literary  men  of  those  days. 

26 


Family  Life 

In  person  he  was  tall  and  spare,  his  fine  head 
crowned  with  silvery  locks,  his  complexion  remark 
able  for  its  clearness  and  purity,  the  flesh  tints  be 
ing  as  clearly  white  and  red  as  those  of  an  infant. 
I  have  fancied  this  was  due,  in  large  measure,  to 
the  simplicity  of  his  diet,  which  was  principally 
fruit  and  cereals.  He  was  fond  of  some  varieties 
of  vegetables,  giving  preference  to  those  that  ma 
tured  above  the  ground,  saying,  "Man,  like  the 
gods,  should  pluck  his  food  from  on  high."  Meat 
he  positively  abhorred.  Morally  and  physically  he 
was  the  cleanest  and  sweetest  of  men.  His  entire 
sphere  radiated  purity.  He  was  exceedingly  ten 
der  towards  all  animals,  having  that  reverence  for 
life,  even  in  its  most  insignificant  forms,  that  char 
acterizes  the  followers  of  Buddha.  He  would  not 
crush  a  worm. 

He  was  endowed  with  rich  intellect  and  a  broad 
humanitarian  spirit;  but  he  was  also  sui  generis; 
a  rare  and  elevating  model  of  a  man,  not  to  be 
measured  by  ordinary  standards.  His  sublime  in 
difference  to  the  practical  affairs  of  life  and  ap 
parently  to  the  heroic  struggles  of  his  devoted  wife 
was  not  indicative  of  his  lack  of  affection  for  her 
or  for  his  children.  For  no  man  loved  his  family 
better,  and  although  at  times  he  sorely  tried  them 
by  his  utter  lack  of  practicability  their  affection 
and  reverence  for  him  never  faltered.  Mrs.  Alcott 

27 


Alcott  Memoirs 

struck  the  keynote  of  his  character  when  I  heard 
her  say:  "He  carries  his  head  in  the  clouds." 

Mrs.  Alcott  was  Abba  May,  daughter  of  Col. 
Joseph  May,  for  many  years  one  of  the  wardens 
of  Kings  Chapel,  Boston.  He  was  a  strikingly 
handsome  old  gentleman  and  I  well  remember  him 
as  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  streets  of  Boston  in 
my  early  boyhood,  not  only  because  of  his  fine  car 
riage,  but  because  he  wore  until  his  death  the  pic 
turesque  Continental  costume  which,  at  that  time, 
wras  practically  obsolete.  The  "small  clothes,"  with 
knee  and  shoe  buckles  set  with  brilliants,  made  a 
fine  setting  for  his  shapely  limbs.  He  stood  as  a 
model  for  the  body  of  Stuart's  portrait  of  Wash 
ington,  a  picture,  for  aught  I  know,  still  hanging  in 
Faneuil  Hall.  It  has  been  said  he  was  the  figure 
O.  W.  Holmes  refers  to  in  his  poem,  "The  Last 
Leaf." 

By  descent  Mrs.  Alcott  was  a  Jewett,  one  of  the 
most  ancient  of  Boston  families.  She  was  one  of 
the  noblest  and  most  practical  women  I  ever  knew, 
large-brained  and  whole-souled,  with  the  manners 
of  a  queen;  a  head  like  Harriet  Martineau,  but  a 
heart  incomparably  larger,  and  endowed  with  fas 
cinating  powers  of  conversation.  She  bore  Mr. 
Alcott's  utter  impracticability  with  wonderful  pa 
tience;  equal  to  any  emergency  in  any  direction, 
no  matter  how  exceedingly  tried.  I  can  remember 

28 


Family  Life 

but  two  or  three  instances  where  she  manifested 
impatience.  Once,  at  some  outrageously  impracti 
cal  thing  her  husband  had  done,  she  exclaimed  im 
petuously  :  "I  do  wish  people  who  carry  their  heads 
in  the  clouds  would  occasionally  take  their  bodies 
with  them."  And  I  recall  her  saying  upon  another 
occasion:  "If  I  should  send  my  husband  for  a 
quart  of  milk,  I  should  fully  expect  to  have  him 
drive  home  a  cow." 

It  w^as  at  Concord,  in  the  refined,  simple  room 
where  the  family  gathered  for  mutual  happy  com 
munion,  for  under  all  circumstances  happiness 
reigned  supreme  in  this  household,  that  Dr.  Wil 
lis,  now  regarded  with  the  affection  centered  upon 
a  son  and  brother  by  the  entire  family,  was  in 
formed  by  Mrs.  Alcott  as  to  the  life  at  Fruitlands. 

In  so  far  as  it  is  consistently  possible  it  is  the 
purpose  of  this  book  to  follow  a  chronological  re 
cording  of  the  continuous  period,  of  a  trifle  less 
than  ten  years,  during  which  Dr.  Willis  was  either  a 
guest  or  a  boarder  in  the  Alcott  family:  the  three 
periods  of  Still  River  Village,  Concord,  and  the 
Pinckney  and  High  Street  houses  in  Boston ;  touch 
ing  in  a  general  manner  upon  the  impressions  re 
ceived  in  these  homes ; — impressions  that  formed  in 
a  large  manner  the  man  of  charm,  beauty  of  thought 
and  expression — ;  and  then  to  return  in  a  series  of 
more  complete  individual  records  formed  in  after 

29 


Alcott  Memoirs 

years — riper  years — of  Mr.  Alcott  and  his  daugh 
ters,  as  well  as  some  of  the  distinguished  people 
whom  he  met  through  them. 

Of  Fruitlands,  Dr.  Willis's  notes  say:  "It  was 
in  Concord  in  1846,  that  Mrs.  Alcott  told  me  the 
story  of  the  failure  of  Mr.  Alcott's  'Tremont 
Street'  school  conducted  in  the  Masonic  Temple, 
a  failure  she  largely  attributed  to  the  merciless 
ridiculing  of  Harriet  Martineau,  saying,  I  well 
remember,  'Thus  Harriet  Martineau  took  the  bread 
from  the  mouths  of  my  family,'  and  then  spoke  of 
Fruitlands.  In  substance  her  story,  told  me  with 
smiling  emotion,  was  as  follows :  After  the  failure 
of  the  school,  Mr.  Alcott,  upon  visiting  England, 
became  acquainted  with  an  Englishman  of  some 
means,  Charles  Lane,  a  man  who  was  thoroughly 
imbued  with  his  own  transcendentalism,  and  was 
also  a  believer  in  Robert  Owen's  Communistic 
ideas.  Together,  after  returning  to  America,  Mr. 
Alcott  and  Mr.  Lane  attempted  to  found  an  Uto 
pian  community  in  the  town  of  Harvard.  They 
bought  a  land-worn  farm  of  about  ninety  acres 
with  an  old  house  and  barn  upon  it,  which  they 
repaired  and  christened  Fruitlands,  Mrs.  Alcott 
said  in  subtle  irony,  since  there  was  no  fruit 
upon  the  place  save  what  little  might  be  looked 
for  from  a  few  venerable  apple  trees,  less  than 
a  dozen  in  number,  and  Mr.  Alcott,  his  family, 

30 


Family  Life 

Mr.  Lane  and  his  young  son,  with  at  the  out 
set  five  others,  took  up  their  abode  there.  With 
the  single  exception  of  Mrs.  Alcott,  no  adult  among 
them  possessed  a  modicum  of  common  sense,  there 
was  but  one  practical  agriculturist  among  them  and 
he  an  old  man,  and  to  any  thinking  person  the  ex 
periment  was  foredoomed  to  failure.  Under  the 
ideals  forecast  but  one  ending  could  be  possible. 

Indeed  in  any  age  the  scheme  of  Fruitlands 
would  have  been  impossible  since  it  was  eminently 
impractical  of  application  to  the  simple  principles 
of  common  sense.  The  original  pkn,  which  for 
obvious  reason  to  even  these  visionaries  could  not 
be  adhered  to  verbatim,  was  a  remarkable  one.  All 
labor  was  to  be  manual,  man  to  supersede  ox  or 
horse,  and  the  spade  to  entirely  replace  the  plow. 
The  pastures  were  to  be  transformed  into  bearing 
orchards  as  if  by  the  magic  touch  of  the  gods  and 
naught  was  to  be  raised  save  fruit,  grain,  and  veg 
etables.  These  were  not  to  be  'cultivated,'  but 
would,  it  was  firmly  believed,  mature  and  ripen  in 
substance  for  the  needs  of  the  community  through 
Nature's  processes  alone,  unaided  by  any  fertiliza 
tion  or  even  any  labor  saving  the  sowing  and  reap 
ing.  No  living  thing  upon  the  ninety  acres  of 
Fruitlands  was  to  be  destroyed,  neither  weed  nor 
worm,  since  all  living  things  were  God's  creatures 
entitled  to  their  natural  or  preferred  sustenance. 

31 


Alcott  Memoirs 

Water  was  to  be  the  only  beverage,  tea  and 
coffee  tabooed  since  their  production  in  the  lands 
from  whence  they  came  involved  the  use  of  slave 
labor.  For  the  same  reason  sugar  or  even  salt 
were  not  to  be  used.  Milk,  butter,  and  cheese 
were  considered  as  polluting  as  the  flesh  which 
was  their  source,  and  eggs  condemned  for  the 
same  reason.  The  day  was  to  begin  with  the  dawn, 
when  every  one,  young  or  old,  should  arise.  Every 
day  was  planned  upon  the  lines  of  its  predecessor; 
beginning  by  bathing  the  body,  this  to  be  followed 
by  music  prior  to  the  breakfast  of  fruit,  bread  made 
from  unbolted  flour,  and  water.  From  breakfast  to 
the  midday  meal  every  one  was  to  find  an  useful 
and  congenial  occupation,  not  essentially  one  that 
urgently  needed  to  be  done  but  rather  to  the  daily 
taste  and  pleasure  of  the  worker.  After  the  midday 
meal  rest  for  the  body  from  the  labor  of  the  morn 
ing  was  to  be  found  in  serious  conversation  that 
would,  too,  develop  the  mind.  From  thence  to  the 
evening  meal  the  same  congenial  labor  of  the  morn 
ing  was  to  be  engaged  in,  the  company  then  assem 
bling  for  exchange  of  thought  and  conversation  un 
til  sundown,  when  every  one  was  to  retire. 

No  candles  or  oil  were  to  be  allowed  since  they 
were  of  animal  source.  Despite  this  edict,  Mrs. 
Alcott  told  me,  she  kept  a  sperm  oil  lamp  which 
she  used  only  after  all  had  retired  for  light  upon 

32 


Family  Life 

the  needed  mending  of  clothing  or  for  the  single 
pleasure  of  reading.  Covering  for  the  body  was 
to  be  of  linen  only,  since  cotton,  wool,  and  silk 
were  not  only  the  product  of  slave  labor,  but  secur- 
able  only  through  the  murder  of  worms  and  sheep. 
With  the  coming  of  autumn  the  bubble  burst. 
The  community  of  Fruitlands  decreased  person  by 
person  until  but  the  Lanes  and  Alcotts  remained. 
Towards  early  winter  Mr.  Lane  and  his  son  took 
their  departure,  there  remaining  but  Mr.  Alcott,  his 
wife  and  the  four  girls,  the  philosopher  still  stead 
fast  and  faithful  to  his  dream.  Mr.  Lane  as  owner 
of  the  property  permitted  the  Alcotts  to  remain 
until  a  tenant  could  be  found,  but  denied  them  the 
privilege  of  cutting  wood  or  grinding  any  more 
grain.  It  was  then  Mr.  Alcott's  health  gave  way 
under  the  strain.  He  had  firmly  believed  he  was 
to  found  in  Fruitlands  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
upon  earth,  and  so  solve  for  all  time  the  life  prob 
lem  for  struggling  humanity.  His  principles  were 
ever  a  religion  to  him,  and  unable  to  admit  defeat 
even  in  the  face  of  it,  he  took  to  his  bed  to  die. 
Turning  his  face  to  the  wall,  he  refused  food  and 
water  and  silently,  with  the  resignation  of  a  phi 
losopher,  waited  for  death.  Mrs.  Alcott  ministered 
to  him  in  devotion,  silence,  and  suffering.  For 
weeks,  taking  but  little  food  at  her  urgent  sup 
plications,  his  life  hovered  in  the  balance ;  but  when 

33 


Alcott  Memoirs 

death  seemed  close  at  hand,  with  all  else  within  him 
faltering,  his  quality  of  love  for  his  wife  and  off 
spring  sustained  him  as  a  bird  upon  a  fluttering 
wing ;  and  with  all  else  within  him  weary  and  worn, 
death  even  beckoning,  through  the  very  quality  of 
his  tender  passion  for  his  own,  he  rallied.  Thus  he 
struggled  back  to  life  again.  His  heroic  wife  en 
couraged  and  comforted  him,  sold  everything  she 
could  spare  from  their  slender  stock  of  household 
goods,  and  rented  four  rooms  from  a  neighbor  who 
owned  a  house  in  a  village  near  by.  Thither  they 
moved  upon  a  December  day  and  there  Mrs.  Alcott 
sewed  and  Mr.  Alcott  chopped  wood,  together 
making  meager  ends  meet. 

It  was  thus  the  family  left  Fruitlands  in  poverty 
to  reside  in  the  half  of  the  humble  but  homelike 
house  in  the  lovely  little  village  of  Still  River,  still 
in  the  town  of  Harvard,  where  I  made  their  ac 
quaintance  the  year  following  in  the  manner  I  have 
described  and  through  which  there  came  to  me  the 
most  beautiful  friendship  of  my  early  life,  a  friend 
ship  lasting  through  many  years.  As  I  write  it 
all  comes  back  to  me  like  a  golden  halo  resting 
upon  the  fields  of  memory. 


IV 

LOUISA   AND    HER   SISTERS 

LOUISA  MAY,  the  Author,  the  "Joe"  of 
"Little  Women,"  had  a  clear  olive-brown 
complexion  with  brown  hair  and  eyes. 
She  answered  perfectly  an  ideal  of  the 
"Nut  Brown  Maid";  she  was  full  of  spirit  and  life; 
impulsive  and  moody,  and  at  times  irritable  and 
nervous.  She  could  run  like  a  gazelle.  She  was  the 
most  beautiful  girl  runner  I  ever  saw.  She  could 
leap  a  fence  or  climb  a  tree  as  well  as  any  boy  and 
dearly  loved  a  good  romp.  We  have  many  times 
clambered  together  into  the  topmost  branches  of 
the  tall  trees  at  Hillside.  She  was  passionately 
fond  of  Nature,  loved  the  fields  and  the  forests 
and  was  in  special  harmony  with  animal  life.  Her 
brief  and  racy  description  of  herself  in  the  opening 
chapter  of  "Little  Women"  is  most  accurately  true: 
"Fifteen-year-old  Joe  was  very  tall,  thin  and  brown 
and  reminded  one  of  a  colt,  for  she  never  seemed  to 
know  what  to  do  with  her  long  limbs  which  were 
very  much  in  her  way.  She  had  a  decided  mouth, 
a  comical  nose,  and  sharp  gray  eyes  which  appeared 
to  see  everything  and  were  by  turn  fierce,  funny, 

35 


Alcott  Memoirs 

or  thoughtful.  Her  long  thick  hair  was  her  one 
beauty,  but  it  was  usually  bundled  into  a  net  out 
of  the  way.  Round  shoulders  had  Joe,  big  hands 
and  feet,  a  fly-away  look  to  her  clothes  and  the  un 
comfortable  appearance  of  a  girl  who  was  rapidly 
shooting  up  into  a  woman,  and  didn't  like  it." 

Louisa  had  great  love  of  personal  beauty  and 
wide  open  eyes  were  her  especial  admiration.  Her 
own  were  rather  small  and,  as  mine  were  also,  we 
heartily  sympathized  with  each  other  on  this  point. 
One  day  after  the  family  had  moved  to  Boston 
she  was  walking  upon  Washington  Street.  The 
thought  came  to  her:  "Now  if  I  keep  my  eyes 
open  people  will  think  that  I  have  beautiful  large 
eyes";  so  she  fixed  her  eyes  in  the  manner  she 
thought  would  impart  the  most  captivating  expres 
sion  to  her  face  and  continued  her  promenade.  She 
began  to  notice  that  many  looked  at  her  intently, 
and  thought  as  a  child  might,  they  were  admiring 
her  beautiful  eyes,  mentally  congratulating  herself 
upon  the  success  of  her  efforts.  I  had  called  dur 
ing  her  absence  and  upon  her  return  sat  chatting 
with  Anna  and  her  mother.  As  she  entered  the 
room  I  exclaimed,  "Why,  Louisa,  what  on  earth 
ails  you?"  She  made  no  reply,  but  walked  directly 
to  the  mirror,  giving,  the  instant  she  looked  into  it, 
a  shriek  of  horror.  She  had  retained  the  expression 
upon  her  face  that  she  had  imagined  so  enhanced 

36 


Louisa  and  Her  Sisters 

its  beauty  until  she  could  get  to  a  mirror  and  ob 
serve  for  herself  its  effect,  discovering,  to  her  dis 
may,  that  she  had  been  parading  Washington 
Street  with  an  insane  stare  upon  her  face.  Her 
effort  to  keep  her  eyelids  open  to  their  widest  pos 
sible  extent  had  contracted  the  skin  of  her  fore 
head  into  wrinkles  and  the  effect  produced  was 
as  of  an  insane  person.  As  she  explained  to  us 
we  burst  into  shouts  of  laughter  and  for  a  long 
time  afterwards  we  chaffed  her  unmercifully  upon 
the  "well  open  eyes." 

Louisa  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Dickens. 
She  reveled  in  his  works  and  could  recite  many 
chapters  from  memory.  His  literary  style  made  an 
indelible  impression  upon  hers  and  the  effect  of 
his  humor  is  very  perceptible  in  all  her  works. 
His  characters  were  living  beings  to  her  and  she 
was  on  terms  of  remarkably  close  intimacy  with 
all  of  them.  She  and  her  sister  Anna  often  acted 
in  costume,  inimitably,  the  quarrel  scene  between 
Sairy  Gamp  and  Betsey  Prigg  over  the  imaginary 
Mrs.  Harris,  with  all  the  accessories  of  the  "tea 
podge,"  and  the  pickled  salmon,  Anna  taking  the 
part  of  Betsey  Prigg  and  Louisa  of  Sairy  Gamp. 
I  have  rarely  seen  anything  better  in  comedy  by 
professionals  and  I  recall  many  instances  of  Mrs. 
Alcott  laughing  until  tears  came  to  her  eyes  over 
the  girls'  performances. 

37 


Alcott  Memoirs 

I  carried  the  first  manuscript  to  press  that  Louisa 
ever  offered  for  publication,  a  story  entitled  "The 
Prince  and  the  Fairy."  I  took  this  story  to  the 
"Boston  Olive  Branch,"  a  paper  published  for 
many  years  under  the  auspices  of  the  Methodist  de 
nominations.  Rev.  and  Mrs.  C.  W.  Dennison,  at 
that  time  well  known  in  the  literary  circles  of  Bos 
ton,  were  the  editors.  Mrs.  Dennison  read  the  story 
in  my  presence,  accepted  it,  and  paid  me,  for  the 
young  author,  the  munificent  sum  of  $5.00.  I  re 
member  well  how  I  bore  it  to  her  with  as  much 
exultation  as  if  it  had  been  $5,000.  This  story 
filled  about  one  and  a  half  columns  of  the  paper. 
In  comparatively  a  few  years  the  lowest  price 
received  for  any  article  of  equal  length,  she  told 
me,  was  $100. 

Louisa  always  lamented  she  was  not  born  a  boy. 
With  the  exception  of  rope  skipping,  at  which  she 
excelled  all  of  us  in  power  of  endurance,  she  pre 
ferred  boys'  games  to  those  of  her  sex.  But  nothing 
gave  her  more  pleasure  than  plays  arid  tableaux. 
She  would  conceive  an  idea  and  write  a  little  drama 
about  it,  cast  all  of  us  in  well-chosen  parts  and  di 
rect,  with  her  sister  Anna,  a  fairly  creditable  chil 
dren's  performance. 

One  evening  during  the  first  summer  at  Concord 
Mrs.  Alcott  mentioned  Hamilton  Willis  of  Boston, 
whom  her  sister  married.  I  knew  well  the  story 

38 


Louisa  and  Her  Sisters 

of  my  father's  family  and  from  what  I  said  Mrs. 
Alcott  discovered  he  was  a  distant  cousin  of  Ham 
ilton  Willis  and,  that  consequently,  I  was  remotely 
related  in  law  but  not  in  blood.  This  last  decision 
of  "Marmee's"  was  a  source  of  regret  to  the  two 
elder  sisters,  but  they  decided  very  seriously  that  I 
was  a  "real  cousin"  notwithstanding,  and  that  a 
play  should  be  written  telling  the  story.  Louisa 
forthwith  spent  two  days  upon  a  play  she  entitled 
"The  Long  Lost  Cousin,"  which  we  performed  be 
fore  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott  and  Mr.  Emerson  under 
the  trees  about  Hillside  and  in  which,  under  my  own 
name,  I  was  given  the  principal  part.  At  its  end 
we  were  to  raise  our  flag  upon  the  cupola  of  the 
house.  But  as  we  did  not  have  a  flag,  nor  know 
where  we  could  borrow  one,  Louisa  and  Anna,  with 
an  old  red  flannel  skirt  and  some  strips  of  muslin, 
together  with  an  old  blue  flannel  cape  upon  which 
were  sewn  white  muslin  stars,  made  a  very  credit 
able  looking  National  banner  which  was  raised  with 
enthusiasm  and  flew  for  many  days  afterwards,  to 
our  childish  joy  and  admiration. 

Louisa  M.  Alcott  left  to  the  young  people  of  her 
own  and  coming  generations  the  legacy  of  her  clean, 
sweet,  and  pure  books.  One  might  look  in  vain 
for  any  great  art  in  them,  but  their  ethics  cannot 
be  questioned  nor  the  brilliancy  and  sparkling  qual 
ity  of  her  style.  All  her  books  should  live.  But, 

39 


Alcott  Memoirs 

as  is  often  the  case,  the  fame  of  an  author  finally 
rests  enshrined  within  a  certain  work.  Louisa's  is 
"Little  Women."  Its  immense  popularity  and 
steadily  continued  sale  through  all  the  years,  as  well 
as  the  wonderful  success  of  the  play  recently 
adapted  from  it,  is  due  directly  to  its  truth  and 
fidelity  to  real  life.  But  the  very  slenderest  thread 
of  fiction  runs  through  it.  And  truth,  genuine  truth 
sincerely  stated,  will  live  within  or  without  the  cov 
ers  of  a  book.  In  most  of  the  scenes  portrayed  in 
"Little  Women"  up  to  the  time  of  Lizzie's  death,  I 
enacted  a  part.  Just  after  this  book  was  published, 
and  when  the  first  edition  wras  selling  rapidly,  I 
met  Louisa's  proud  and  happy  father  in  the  Fitch- 
burg  Station  in  Boston.  He  came  up  to  me,  beam 
ing,  and  rubbing  his  hands  together  in  a  manner 
quite  peculiar  to  himself  when  well  pleased,  saying : 
"Well,  my  boy,  did  you  recognize  yourself  as  Lau 
rie  in  Louisa's  book?"  I  had  just  returned  from 
abroad,  the  book  having  been  issued  while  I  was 
away,  and  I  had  to  confess  I  had  not  read  it.  I 
immediately  procured  a  copy  and  absorbed  writh 
delight  its  realistic  descriptions  of  familiar,  well 
remembered  scenes. 

Louisa  M.  Alcott  was  noble  and  true  in  her 
impulses.  She  had  a  tender  and  beautiful  side  to 
her  nature.  This  quality  was  charmingly  expressed 
in  her  hospital  experiences  during  the  Civil  War, 

40 


Louisa  and  Her  Sisters 

and  in  her  pathetic  "Hospital  Sketches"  there  are 
very  true  glimpses  of  it.  She  made  a  brave,  heroic, 
winning  struggle  through  adversity  to  success  and 
fame,  lifting,  through  this  success,  the  entire  family 
from  poverty  and  deprivation  to  comfort  and  af 
fluence.  She  had  a  naturally  vivacious,  keen-witted 
view  of  life  and  was  extraordinarily  quick  at  repar 
tee.  From  my  matriculative  year  at  Harvard,  until 
shortly  before  my  marriage,  I  maintained  a  corre 
spondence  with  Louisa.  It  is  a  matter  of  deep 
regret  to  me  that,  together  with  many  papers  of 
value,  her  letters,  which  wrere  among  my  most 
valued  treasures,  were  stolen.  They  were  full  of 
a  sparkling  wit  and  humor,  particularly  the  series 
written  to  me  during  my  college  life,  wherein  she 
was  "Mrs.  Propriety  Coreander"  and  I  was  her 
only  son,  "Thomas  Propriety  Coreander."  They 
were  full  of  frolicsome  and  serious  advice  and  ad 
monition  suitable  for  every  occasion  of  my  college 
experience  and  daily  conduct. 

If  I  were  asked  to  designate  two  words  best 
describing  Louisa  I  should  say  wit  and  tenderness. 
Her  witticisms  were  sparkling  as  a  brook  and  as 
continuous  as  its  flow.  Once  when  asked  a  defini 
tion  of  a  philosopher  she  instantly  replied,  "A  man 
up  in  a  balloon  with  his  family  at  the  strings  tug 
ging  to  pull  him  down."  Her  big  heart  ached  at  the 
burden  of  poverty  under  which  her  family  rested 

41 


Alcott  Memoirs 

and  it  was  due  to  the  element  of  tenderness  in  her 
nature  that  she  persisted  in  her  literary  work 
through  all  sorts  of  failures  and  disappointments 
until  success  crowned  her  efforts  with  "Little  Wo 
men."  It  has  been  said  that  genius  is  the  capacity 
of  taking  infinite  pains.  If  so,  it  is  also  the  capacity 
of  indomitable  perseverance.  Louisa  owed  her  great 
success  as  much  to  these  qualities  as  to  any  talent  or 
natural  endowment.  The  "blood  and  thunder"  sto 
ries  written  by  her  and  sold  to  inferior  magazines 
and  newspapers  brought  a  pittance  for  the  family 
exchequer,  but  were  of  more  value  as  practice  in 
the  art  of  story  writing.  To  these  she  owed  her 
ready  style  when  it  came  to  the  writing  of  her 
masterpiece.  She  was  ashamed  of  these  stories  in 
later  years,  but  she  need  not  have  been,  for  while 
they  catered  to  a  crude  taste  they  were  never  un 
clean  or  unworthy,  or  in  violation  of  any  canon 
of  propriety  or  morality. 

Her  muse  was  dramatic  and  had  she  lived  in 
these  days  and  formulated  her  talent  along  dra 
matic  lines  her  success  would  have  been  a  marked 
one. 

Elizabeth  Sewell,  the  third  daughter,  the  "Beth" 
of  "Little  Women,"  was  aptly  named  by  her  father 
"Little  Tranquillity."  Pages  would  not  better  de 
scribe  her.  She  was  possessed  of  an  even,  lovable 
disposition,  a  temperament  akin  to  Mr.  Alcott,  in- 

42 


Louisa  and  Her  Sisters 

deed  more  than  akin,  since  it  was  a  very  counter 
part.  Under  any  and  all  conditions  she  was  as  sunny 
and  serene  as  a  morning  in  June.  Her  appearance 
was  that  of  a  typical  Puritan  maid.  In  her  book 
Louisa  calls  her  "a  rosy,  smooth-haired,  bright-eyed 
girl  with  a  shy  manner,  a  timid  voice,  and  a  peaceful 
expression  which  was  seldom  disturbed ;  she  seemed 
to  live  in  a  world  of  her  own,  only  venturing  out  to 
meet  the  few  whom  she  loved  and  trusted."  She 
loved  music,  played  the  piano  with  more  ease  than 
any  of  her  sisters  and  with  something  of  real  appre 
ciation. 

She  was  possessed  of  her  mother's  practicality 
and  housewifely  qualities,  and  at  a  very  early  age 
aided  in  the  preparation  of  the  simple  family  re 
pasts  ;  later,  and  particularly  while  the  family  lived 
in  Boston  and  Mrs.  Alcott  was  directing  her  Intel 
ligence  Offices,  taking  full  charge  of  the  family 
kitchen.  She  died  upon  the  threshold  of  woman 
hood.  Her  fame  rests  in  the  purity  and  innocent 
charm  of  memory  she  bequeathed  to  those  who 
knew  her  and,  in  the  broader  sense,  the  perpetua 
tion  of  these  same  qualities  to  the  thousands  who 
have  read  "Little  Women,"  and  hence  know  her 
as  a  wholesome  character  in  a  sweet  and  whole 
some  story. 

Anna  Bronson,  the  eldest  of  the  four  girls  and 
the  "Meg"  of  "Little  Women,"  had  a  clematis 

43 


Alcott  Memoirs 

and  wild  rose  complexion,  wide  open  blue  eyes, 
and  a  wealth  of  golden  hair.  The  Still  River 
summer,  I  had  nicknamed  her  "The  Ox-eyed  Juno" 
and  for  years  after  so  called  her.  She  had  the  calm 
poise  of  her  father,  a  more  amiable  disposition  than 
any  of  her  sisters,  was  possessed  of  a  quiet,  keen 
sense  of  humor,  and  while  taking  full  part  in  our 
play  enjoyed  the  fun  and  frolic  with  a  certain  dig 
nified  zest  that  was  in  no  sense  a  pose  but  rather  a 
part  of  her. 

She  was  possessed  of  genuine  dramatic  ability 
and  would,  as  Louisa,  have  brought  honor  and 
credit  to  the  stage  had  she  adopted  it  as  a  profes 
sion.  She  married  John  Pratt,  son  of  Minot  Pratt 
of  Concord,  and  was  early  left  a  widow  with  two 
sons  whom  Louisa  educated.  I  had  not  seen  her 
for  many  years  when  shortly  after  the  death  of 
Louisa  and  Mr.  Alcott  I  called  upon  her  at  her 
home  in  Boston.  She  was  then  the  sole  surviving 
member  of  the  famity.  We  spent  a  pleasant  after 
noon  together  talking  over  the  halcyon  days  of  our 
youth  and  early  friendship.  As  she  bade  me  good- 
by  she  said:  "You  know  you  always  were  our 
Laurie." 

Abba  May,  the  youngest,  and  the  "Amy"  of 
"Little  Women,"  was  a  slender  girl  with  the  clear 
complexion  of  her  father  and  had  blue  eyes  and 
golden  hair.  Being  the  baby  of  the  family  and 

44 


Louisa  and  Her  Sisters 

much  petted  she  was  inclined  to  be  childishly  tyran 
nical  at  times.  "Abby"  May,  as  she  was  called  by 
all,  was  very  active  and,  after  Louisa,  the  biggest 
romp  among  her  sisters.  She  was  fond  of  sketch 
ing  and  her  little  drawings  were  a  source  of  admi 
ration  to  all  of  us.  That  she  had  genuine  talent 
as  an  artist  was  evidenced  in  her  studies  abroad 
after  the  success  of  Louisa's  book,  where  it  was 
said  she  won  honors  at  her  chosen  profession.  She 
died  young,  never  returning  to  America,  after  her 
marriage,  I  think  in  Switzerland,  to  Ernest  Nieri- 
ken,  an  artist,  by  whom  she  had  one  child.  I  never 
saw  or  heard  from  her  after  she  crossed  the  At 
lantic. 


ALCOTT    THE    PHILOSOPHER 

AMOS  BRONSON  ALCOTT  above  all 
other    things    is    distinguished    as    the 
founder  of  the  first  American  School  of 
Philosophy.    He  was  "vera  causa"  of  the 
New  England  School  of  Transcendentalism,  and 
the  most  earnest  advocate  of  its  religio-philosophi- 
cal  ideas.     He  enlisted  for  it  the  sympathies  and 
active  support  of  his  personal  friend,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  and  others.    This  philosophy  had  little  in 
concord  with  Kantism  despite  the  latter  doctrine  is 
generally  classified  as  transcendentalistic. 

Mr.  Alcott's  mental  and  philosophical  attitude, 
and  a  distinguished  authority's  definition  of  New 
England  Transcendentalism,  are  one:  "character 
ized  by  the  absence  of  a  formal  system  of  belief,  a 
somewhat  mystical  phraseology,  the  exaltation  of 
the  spiritual  in  a  general  sense  over  the  material,  a 
tendency  to  synthesis  of  God,  Nature  and  man,  an 
acceptance  of  all  human  manifestations  as  natural 
and  not  immoral,  an  apotheosis  of  Nature,  and  a 
belief  in  the  self-sufficiency  of  the  individual  and 
individual  insight." 

46 


Alcott  the  Philosopher 

Mr.  Alcott  aimed  at  a  construction  of  substances, 
elements,  and  average  mentalities  into  new  forms, 
and  had  the  sublime  courage  of  his  convictions  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  make  an  earnest  effort  to  bring 
them  about.  This  pure,  good,  impractical  dreamer 
literally  carried  his  head  in  the  heavens  until  his 
dying  day.  He  was  as  firmly  convinced  of  the 
practicality  of  his  philosophy  after  a  disastrous  ex 
periment,  as  before  it.  But  he  was  a  true  philoso 
pher  nevertheless.  Long  ere  his  death  he  realized 
in  a  spirit  of  rare  humor  his  fame  would  go  down 
to  posterity  not  as  an  expounder  of  the  science  of 
principles  but  as  his  daughter's  father.  After  the 
phenomenal  success  of  "Little  Women,"  while  he 
was  traveling  in  the  middle  West,  he  wrote  home 
to  his  wife:  "I  am  having  a  delightful  time  riding 
about  in  Louisa's  chariot  and  being  adored  every 
where,  not  for  myself  nor  my  beliefs,  but  as  the 
grandfather  of  'Little  Women.'  " 

Practicality  and  Mr.  Alcott  were  as  wide  apart 
as  the  poles.  He  was  utterly  incapable  of  earning 
a  livelihood  and,  in  consequence,  of  supporting  his 
family,  wrhom  he  nevertheless  loved  in  a  deeply  gen 
uine  manner.  He  had  no  conception  or  understand 
ing  of  the  poverty  and  need  in  his  home,  even  when 
straits  were  dire  indeed.  Upon  one  occasion,  typ 
ical  of  many  ere  the  success  of  "Little  Women," 
he  was  presented  by  Emerson  with  $25.  Without 

47 


Alcott  Memoirs 

a  thought  as  to  the  necessities  lacking  in  his  house 
hold,  he  expended  every  penny  upon  elaborate  sta 
tionery,  which  he  smilingly  brought  home  as  a  child 
would  a  new  toy.  I  should  define  Mr.  Alcott's 
philosophy  as  the  extreme  polar  opposite  of  Mate 
rialism.  He  gave  unequivocal  supremacy  to  spirit ; 
it  was  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the 
ending,  in  which  all  things  and  all  beings  are  in 
volved  and  out  of  which,  evolved.  This  was  really 
his  basic  foundation.  Of  Nature  he  says,  "Nature 
is  not  fixed,  but  fluid.  Spirit  alters,  moulds,  makes 
it." 

I  was  altogether  too  young  to  grasp  much  of 
his  system  of  philosophy  in  those  days.  It  was 
too  abstract  for  my  young  mind  to  even  attempt 
to  comprehend.  But  I  remember  that  his  Orphic 
sayings  were  an  unknown  tongue  to  the  majority 
of  mature  years.  A  few  will  serve  as  illustra 
tive  of  all  of  them. 

Of  organization  he  said:  "Possibly  organiza 
tion  is  not  a  necessary  function  or  mode  of  spir 
itual  being.  The  time  may  come  in  the  endless 
career  of  the  soul  when  the  facts  of  incarnation, 
birth,  death,  descent  into  matter,  and  ascension 
from  it,  shall  comprise  no  part  of  her  history; 
when  she  herself  shall  survey  this  human  life  with 
emotions  akin  to  those  of  the  naturalist  on  examin 
ing  the  relics  of  extinct  races  of  beings;  when 

48 


Alcott  the  Philosopher 

mounds,  sepulchres,  monuments,  epitaphs,  shall 
serve  but  as  memoirs  of  a  past  state  of  existence; 
as  reminiscences  of  one  metempsychosis  of  her  life 
in  time." 

Of  the  Teacher:  "The  true  teacher  defends  his 
pupils  against  his  own  personal  influence.  He  in 
spires  self-trust.  He  guides  their  eyes  from  him 
self  to  the  spirit  that  quickens  him.  He  will  have 
no  disciples.  A  noble  artist,  he  has  visions  of  excel 
lence  and  revelations  of  beauty  which  he  has  neither 
impersonated  in  character  nor  embodied  in  words. 
His  life  and  teachings  are  but  studies  for  yet  nobler 
ideals."  This  recognizes  the  grand  truth  that  the 
ultimate  of  all  educational  processes  or  systems 
should  be  the  preservation  and  development  of  the 
individuality  of  the  pupil. 

Of  Life:  "Life,  in  its  initial  state,  is  synthetic; 
then  feeling,  thought,  action,  are  one  and  indivis 
ible;  love  is  its  manifestation.  Childhood  and  wo 
manhood  are  samples  and  instances.  But  thought 
disintegrates  and  breaks  this  unity  of  soul;  action 
alone  restores  it.  Action  is  composition;  thought, 
decomposition.  Deeds  executed  in  love  are  grace 
ful,  harmonious,  entire;  enacted  from  thought 
merely,  they  are  awkward,  dissonant,  incomplete, — 
a  manufacture,  not  creations,  not  works  of  genius." 

Of  Genesis:  "The  popular  genesis  is  historical. 
It  is  written  to  sense  not  to  the  soul.  Two  prin- 


Alcott  Memoirs 

ciples,  diverse  and  alien,  interchange  the  Godhead 
and  sway  the  world  by  turns.  God  is  dual.  Spirit 
is  derivative  identity.  Unity  is  actual  merely.  The 
poles  of  things  are  not  integrated:  creation  globed 
and  orbed.  Yet  in  the  true  genesis  Nature  is  globed 
in  the  material,  souls  orbed  in  the  spiritual,  firma 
ment.  Love  globes,  wisdom  orbs,  all  things.  As 
magnet  the  steel,  so  spirit  attracts  matter,  which 
trembles  to  traverse  the  poles  of  diversity  and  rest 
in  the  bosom  of  unity.  All  genesis  is  of  love.  Wis 
dom  is  her  form,  beauty  her  costume." 

This  is  perhaps  the  most  paradoxical  of  his  nu 
merous  Orphic  sayings  and  the  one  most  violently 
opposed  to  generally  accepted  tenets.  When  pro 
mulgated  it  met  with  a  storm  of  ridicule  and  con 
tempt  from  the  leading  papers  of  Boston,  the  aris 
tocratic  literary  coterie  of  Beacon  Street,  the  entire 
materialistic  school  of  thought  of  the  day,  and  even 
by  many  who  in  after  years  became  Mr.  Alcott's 
warmest  friends  and  admirers.  This  criticism  gave 
keen  distress  to  his  devoted  wife  and  contributed 
very  largely  to  the  breaking  up  of  his  Boston  Philo 
sophical  School.  A  letter  of  Mrs.  Alcott's  to  her 
brother,  Rev.  Samuel  J.  May,  says  in  part:  "You 
have  seen  how  roughly  they  have  handled  my  hus 
band.  He  has  been  a  sufferer  but  not  the  less  a 
sufferer  because  quiet.  He  stands  to  it,  through 
all,  that  this  is  not  an  ungrateful,  cruel  world.  I 

50 


Alcott  the  Philosopher 

rail;  he  reasons  and  consoles  me  as  if  I  were  the 
injured  one.  I  do  not  know  a  more  exemplary  hero 
under  trials  than  this  same  Visionary.'  He  has 
more  philosophy  than  half  the  persons  who  are 
afraid  he  is  thinking  too  much.  His  school  is  very 
small,  or  will  be  at  the  commencement  of  the  next 
quarter.  He  will  begin  with  about  ten  or  a  dozen 
here  for  the  summer  term.  I  sometimes  think  ex 
treme  poverty  awaits  us.  With  the  idea  comes 
before  my  mind  a  thousand  enterprises  and  expe 
dients.  But  oh!  my  girls!  what  exposure  may  they 
be  subjected  to!  I  do  not  woo  doubt  but  I  wed 
sorrow  and  I  surely  do  not  need  that  alliance  to 
promote  either  my  faith  or  hope.  How  ready  men 
are  to  accuse ;  how  slow  to  defend !  I  am  no  angel, 
though  I  expect  to  be  one  of  these  days.  I  have 
never  aspired  to  any  kind  of  a  pinion  but  a  goose- 
quill  and  I  shall  be  very  apt  to  flop  that  about  when 
there  is  anybody  who  cares  to  see  my  flight." 

During  the  second  summer  that  I  lived  with  them 
at  Concord  an  elaborately  bound  volume  addressed 
to  Mr.  Alcott  arrived  by  post  from  Germany.  I 
do  not  remember  the  name  of  the  author  or  the 
title  of  the  book  save  that  it  was  written  by  a  then 
famous  German  Philosopher.  Imprinted  upon  the 
cover  was  a  bust  of  Mr.  Alcott  and  beneath  it,  in 
letters  of  gold,  one  of  his  "Orphic  Sayings."  I 
have  never  forgotten  the  ecstatic  expression  that 

51 


Alcott  Memoirs 

came  upon  Mrs.  Alcott's  face  as  she  looked  upon 
it,  realizing  it  was  something  more  than  a  mere 
compliment.  To  her  it  was  a  token  of  recognition 
from  a  high  authority  of  her  husband's  fitness  to 
rank  among  the  famous  thinkers  of  the  day.  She 
trod  veritably  upon  air  for  days;  and  the  manner 
in  which  she  exhibited  the  book  to  friends  who 
called  was,  I  remember,  in  an  indescribable  blend 
ing  of  pride,  dignity,  and  intense  satisfaction. 

I  recall,  in  this  connection,  that  it  was  but  a  few 
years  after  that  Emerson's  poem  "Brahma"  was 
published  in  an  early  number  of  the  then  new 
Atlantic  Monthly.  I  am  not  certain  but  what  it 
was  in  the  initial  number.  I  well  recall  that  the 
storm  of  ridicule  this  poem  caused,  almost  equaled 
in  intensity  that  which  descended  upon  Mr.  Al 
cott's  Orphic  Sayings.  It  was  as  equally  incom 
prehensible  to  the  average  reader.  For  a  reason 
which  immediately  follows  I  insert  here : 

BRAHMA 

If  the  red  slayer  think  he  slays, 

Or  if  the  slain  think  he  is  slain, 
They  know  not  well  the  subtle  ways 

I  keep,  and  pass,  and  turn  again. 

Far  or  forgot  to  me  is  near; 

Shadow  and  sunlight  are  the  same. 
The  vanished  gods  to  me  appear; 

And  one  to  me  are  shame  and  fame. 

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Alcott  the  Philosopher 

They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out; 

When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings; 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 

And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahma  sings. 

The  strong  gods  pine  for  my  abode, 

And  pine  in  vain  the  sacred  seven ; 
But  thou,  meek  lover  of  the  good ! 

Find  me,  and  turn  thy  back  on  Heaven. 

As  a  remarkable  evidence  of  the  sympathy  be 
tween  the  poet  and  the  philosopher  another  of  the 
latter's  Orphic  Sayings  seems  to  me  most  appro 
priate,  not  only  for  similarity's  sake  as  an  interest 
ing  example  of  a  prose  and  poetical  treatment  of 
the  same  thought,  but  because  the  prose  outlines 
the  fundamental  principles  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  Chris 
tian  Science  almost  uncannily,  despite  its  predating 
this  doctrine  very  many  years. 

"Evil  has  no  positive  existence.  It  has  usurped 
a  positive  place  and  being  in  the  popular  imagina 
tion  and  by  the  imagination  must  be  made  to  flee 
away  into  negative  life.  How  shall  this  be  done? 
By  shadowing  forth  in  vivid  colors  the  absolute 
beauty  and  phenomena  of  good;  by  assuming  evil 
not  as  positive  but  as  negative;  the  dark  back 
ground  and  blot  in  the  picture  by  contrast.  God 
alone  is  eternal  good,  eternal  truth.  Evil,  like 
its  prototype  darkness,  is  not  a  thing  at  all  but  the 
absence  of  a  thing." 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

During  years  of  adversity  Mr.  Alcott  con 
ducted  his  school  in  Boston.  It  was  not  a  success, 
due  as  much  to  Harriet  Martineau's  scathing  and 
merciless  ridicule  as  to  the  methods  and  system  of 
the  teacher,  whose  ideas  of  instruction  were  based 
upon  the  Pestalozzi  method.  This  was  so  novel, 
strange,  and  totally  different  from  anything  in 
American  education,  that  all  manner  of  derision 
was  made  of  it.  Mr.  Alcott  was  really  the  pioneer 
of  this  kindergarten  system  in  America  and  merely 
lived  ahead  of  his  day. 

As  an  interesting  example  of  the  School's  meth 
ods,  I  copy  from  my  journal  notes  of  the  last  ses 
sion  I  attended  in  1853.  These  sessions  were  al 
ways  conversational  and,  in  this  instance,  outlined 
the  teacher's  idea  of  a  philosophical  career.  The 
subject  of  the  evening  was  Plato,  the  discussion 
ensuing  after  Mr.  Alcott's  preliminary  remarks 
upon  the  Greek  and  his  philosophy. 

Some  one  asked:  "Do  you  think  it  makes  any 
difference  in  regard  to  Oneness  as  a  person  or  as 
a  thing?" 

Mr.  Alcott:  "I  do  not  see  how  I  could  worship 
a  thing,  nor  the  thing,  nor  the  thought.  I  don't 
see  how  I  could  worship  a  principle.  I  don't  see 
how  I  could  worship  a  law.  I  don't  see  how  I 
could  worship  an  idea.  I  do  see  how  I  could  wor 
ship  the  Oneness  that  contains  them  all  and  out 

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Alcott  the  Philosopher 

of  which  they  all  flow.  Worship  is  not  only  neces 
sary  but  essential.  There  was  never  a  soul  that 
did  not  worship.  The  very  essence  and  life  of  the 
soul  is  worship.  The  babe,  according  to  its  capac 
ity,  worships  the  fair  face  that  looks  upon  it  and 
the  orb  from  which  it  takes  its  nourishment.  The 
belief  in  reminiscence  or  pre-existence,  is  not  Pla 
to's  alone.  It  did  not  originate  with  him.  He  bor 
rowed  it  from  Egypt  or  the  East  and  incorporated 
it  into  his  philosophy  believing  it  to  be  an  unques 
tionable  truth.  If  any  one  can  remember  when  he 
did  not  remember  himself,  then  must  he  be  left 
to  question  and  reason  it  out  as  he  may;  but  if 
any  one  remembers  when  he  did  not  remember, 
then  it  is  plain  there  is  a  depth  of  memory  in  him 
that  he  has  not  sounded  and  that  he  is  older  than 
he  knows.  If  his  grandmother  insists  that  she 
knows  his  age  and  has  marked  it  in  the  family  reg 
ister  grandmother  may  be  pardoned  for  her  de 
lightful  superstition  about  her  grandchild's  origin, 
even  though  present  at  his  bodily  advent.  My  im 
pression  is  that  the  babe  is  as  old  as  his  grand 
mother;  not  that  the  babe  descends  into  time  and 
takes  his  body  in  the  same  period  of  the  world 
that  she  does.  Here  is  good  history,  correct  chro 
nology,  important  to  family  folk  in  these  senses, 
but  as  soon  as  these  transcend  their  senses  by 
thought,  they  find  themselves,  babe  and  all,  older 

55 


Alcott  Memoirs 

than  they  can  tell." 

Some  one  asked :  "Did  not  Plato  base  his  theory 
upon  the  fact  that  we  have  intuitions?  That  we  can 
compare  the  ideas  we  receive  consciously  through 
the  senses  with  the  intuitions  that  come  we  know 
not  whence?" 

Mr.  Alcott:  "If  Plato  were  to  speak  he  might 
say  it  is  because  we  contain  all  things  within  our 
selves,  we  are  older  than  all  things  visible,  we  pre 
date  all  things  visible  because  we  preceded  timt  and 
space,  therefore  can  we  translate  ourselves  out  of 
time  into  space  and  look  down  upon  our  immortal 
ity.  Why  should  it  not  be  so?  Why  not  have  a 
perspective  opening  into  eternity  as  well  as  an  open 
ing  before  us  into  futurity?  Why  should  not  the 
Godhead  reveal  himself  through  the  retrospects  of 
memory  as  well  as  through  the  prospects  of  imagi 
nation?  Through  the  recollections  as  well  as 
through  the  instincts  of  faith  and  hope  ?  If  the  soul 
is  not  older  than  the  body  it  cannot  be  proven  it  will 
survive  the  body.  So  the  fathers  of  the  church  be 
lieved;  asserting  that  unless  you  can  prove  its  pre- 
existence  you  have  no  evidence  that  it  may  not 
decay ;  for  if  the  soul  be  an  atom,  or  a  coalesced  body 
of  atoms,  matter  only,  mere  perishable  stuff,  then 
what  evidence  is  there  it  shall  not  dissolve?  But  if 
every  atom  of  matter  is  animated,  God  embracing, 
then  we  are  as  immortal  as  Himself.  So  Plato 

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Alcott  the  Philosopher 

taught.  So  Christ  taught.  Whoever  needs  other 
proof  has  none.  Whoever  hopes  to  prove  his  im 
mortality  by  miracle  or  logic  fails.  The  proof 
transcends  understanding.  It  cannot  be  proved  by 
one  faculty  alone  but  requires  the  united  action  of 
all  the  faculties." 

This  school  of  Mr.  Alcott's,  despite  its  failure, 
brought  from  all  parts  of  the  country  very  many 
distinguished  men  of  learning  who  evinced  a  genu 
ine  respect  for  the  man,  his  method,  and  his  work. 
Some  years  afterwards  when  the  success  of  "Little 
Women"  made  it  financially  possible,  Louisa, 
whose  love  for  her  father  was  very  devoted  despite 
she  had  little  sympathy  with  his  transcendentalism, 
had  erected  in  Concord  a  little  house  which  was 
known  as  "The  Alcott  School  of  Philosophy."  It 
was  very  simple  and  primitive  following  her  father's 
wishes;  resembling  a  tiny  mission  chapel  with  no 
ornament  whatsoever,  even  the  lumber  remaining 
unpainted.  It  was  no  more  successful  than  the 
Boston  School,  although  it  had  the  prestige  and 
attendance  of  many  noted  people,  including 
Emerson,  Thoreau,  F.  L.  Harris,  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  and  Louise  Chandler  Moulton. 

Mr.  Alcott  lived  his  philosophy.  He  believed  in 
it  so  thoroughly  that  to  his  intimates  his  daily  life 
exemplified  this  point  far  more  than  his  teachings 
or  writings.  I  have  read  everything  his  able  pen 

57 


Alcott  Memoirs 

has  uttered.  My  most  lasting  impressions,  how 
ever,  are  the  memories  of  his  simple  Sunday  after 
noon  talks.  Upon  these  occasions  he  laid  aside  the 
language  of  his  public  utterances,  substituting  sim 
ple  concise  English  expressed  with  such  charm  and 
direction  that  we  elder  children  had  no  difficulty  in 
fully  comprehending  him.  I  recall  the  general 
tenor  and  much  of  the  phraseology  of  some  of  these 
delightful  conversations;  of  one  instance  my  jour 
nal  records:  "There  are  no  limitations  to  ideas 
but  there  are  certain  principles  from  which  must 
spring  all  true  ideas  and  on  the  basis  of  which  all 
principles  must  rest.  A  departure  from  these  is 
an  emergence  at  once  into  difficulties  and  doubts, 
into  uncertainties  and  mischances." 

"But,"  I  asked,  "how  can  one  know  these  prin 
ciples?" 

"They  are  the  light  that  light eth  every  man  that 
cometh  in  the  world,"  he  replied;  "they  appeal  to 
every  consciousness.  It  is  not  because  men  mistake 
them  that  they  build  upon  them  errors  of  philos 
ophy  or  religion,  but  because  they  seek  to  bend 
these  simple  truths  to  suit  conditions  that  do  not 
accord  with  them.  That  is,  they  endeavor  to  take 
these  foundation  stones  out  of  the  Temple  of  Truth 
and  fit  them  into  a  structure  of  their  own.  I  will 
give  you  two  or  three  principles  that  will  be  suffi 
cient  for  your  guidance  through  life,  but  will  be  of 

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Alcott  the  Philosopher 

no  avail  unless  you  strive  to  fit  them  to  your  life 
and  make  them  the  foundation  stones  upon  which 
to  build  your  character. 

First: — The  Infinite  Supreme,  the  creator  of  all 
life.  God,  our  Father,  and  His  inseparable  co-rel 
ative  man,  our  brother. 

Second: — The  divine  in  the  human.  This  is  the 
undying  force  within  every  human  soul  and  its 
means  of  growth.  It  is  the  destiny  of  this  divine 
spark  to  glow  and  finally  shine  forth  in  splendor. 
There  is  no  power  nor  circumstance  here  or  here 
after,  that  can  control  the  development  of  this 
force. 

Third: — The  spirit  and  all  its  attributes  in  man 
are  eternal." 

Mr.  Alcott  believed  it  wras  upon  these  principles, 
true  in  themselves,  that  false  structures,  false  theo 
logical  conceptions,  among  them  total  depravity, 
an  endless  hell  of  physical  torture,  immediate  sanc- 
tification  that  permitted  a  murderer  from  a  scaf 
fold  to  enter  the  highest  heaven,  had  been  built. 
The  result  of  all  these  he  believed  to  be  the  shaping 
of  the  future  into  unnatural  condition ;  a  dead  fu 
ture  separated  from  a  living  present.  As  he  spoke, 
he  became  wonderfully  radiant,  I  well  remember. 
He  defined  the  soul  as  an  entity  that,  after  the  body 
was  dead,  lived  on  subject  to  a  higher  strata  of  the 
same  moral,  social,  and  intellectual  laws  as  governed 

59 


Alcott  Memoirs 

the  body  ere  dissolution.  For  Jesus  the  man,  Mr. 
Alcott  manifested  a  loving  admiration  and  a  tender 
regard.  It  was  not  worship. 

One  day  I  asked  him  if  he  thought  Jesus  held 
any  vital  relation  to  the  living  present.  I  cannot 
recall  the  details  of  his  reply  and  my  journal  does 
not  record  it;  but  I  remember  that  he  believed 
Jesus  held  as  real  and  significant  a  relation  to  hu 
manity  as  He  did  when  He  died  centuries  before; 
and  unfaltering  faith  in  all  the  attributes,  faculties, 
and  power  of  the  spirit  of  man  compelled  him  to 
believe  in  the  interpenetration  of  two  spheres  of 
being;  that  the  law  of  sympathy  alone  was  suffi 
ciently  possible  to  bring  a  man  under  the  individual 
guidance  and  influence  of  Jesus  Himself. 

I  remember  this  was  to  me  an  intensely  interest 
ing  conversation.  I  was  startled  by  his  declaring 
any  living  man  might  truthfully  assert,  as  did 
Jesus  in  substance,  "I  am  the  cause  and  producer 
of  all  things,  for  you  can  place  no  man  outside  of 
infinity."  I  think  more  than  any  other  one  thing 
Mr.  Alcott's  philosophy  influenced  my  life  course. 
I  look  back  over  the  hills  and  valleys  of  memory 
and,  seeing  this,  I  gratefully  acknowledge.  As  I 
write  the  vividness  of  imprint  he  made  upon  my 
boy  mind  in  many  conversations  comes  back  to  me 
as  fresh  and  green  as  the  first  leaves  in  an  April 
wood. 

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Alcott  the  Philosopher 

I  made  copious  notes  in  my  journal  without  at 
the  time  fully  realizing  their  consequence.  This 
man  was  in  many  senses  as  a  father  to  me  as  his 
wife  was  a  mother  to  me.  I  had  been  brought  up 
in  extreme  bigotry  and  here  was  a  breadth  of  view 
that  seemed  to  go  to  the  other  extreme  coming  from 
the  lips  of  one  I  revered  and  loved,  showing  me 
a  God  quite  different  from  the  One  my  grand 
mother  pointed  out  to  me  as  constantly  threaten 
ing  fire  and  brimstone. 

Later  in  my  life,  while  still  a  young  man,  I 
evolved  from  these  notes  the  theme  and  substance 
of  a  public  utterance  I  delivered  from  a  Michigan 
pulpit.  I  have  been  a  practitioner  of  the  two  so- 
called  learned  professions.  Before  I  began  the 
study  of  medicine  in  New  York  City  at  the  out 
break  of  the  Civil  War  I  had  been  a  settled  clergy 
man  for  a  period  of  six  years  in  Coldwater,  Michi 
gan.  After  my  resignation  as  Professor  of 
Materia-Medica  at  the  New  York  Homoeopathic 
Medical  College  for  Women,  where  I  spent  five 
years  of  my  life,  I  practiced  medicine  in  New  York, 
Boston,  and  my  summer  home  in  Glenora,  N.  Y., 
on  Seneca  Lake,  until  a  few  months  ago  when  I 
reached  my  eighty-third  year.  It  is  nearly  half 
a  century,  therefore,  since  I  followed  the  ministry 
as  a  profession.  But  I  well  recall  the  particular 
address  I  refer  to  as  having  delivered  from  my 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

Coldwater  pulpit.  The  Alcott  philosophy  upon 
which  it  was  based  is  as  purely  and  wholly  true 
to-day  as  it  was  then,  as  unchanged  in  lovely  beauty 
as  the  philosophy  of  Epictetus.  In  small  part,  I 
quote  it  here: 

"Events  record  themselves  as  facts  but  progress 
as  principles.  The  voice  of  true  progress  calls  to 
every  attribute  of  the  soul  and  bids  it  'come  up 
higher.'  The  prophetic  voice  of  the  future  speaks 
to  intellect,  conscience,  and  heart  alike.  It  reaches 
the  beauteous  domain  of  art;  it  echoes  through  the 
writings  of  all  the  ages;  it  is  the  source  of  every 
creative  inspiration;  it  permeates  in  its  demand  for 
better  mechanism  and  higher  achievements  the 
workshop,  factory  and  farm.  It  evolves  the  hon 
est  man,  who  to  be  such,  must  believe  in  the  honesty 
of  others,  as  it  evolves  the  virtuous  man,  whom  to 
be  such  must  first  believe  in  the  virtue  of  others. 
To  talk  learnedly  of  God  may  be  considered  the 
mark  of  a  Christian;  but  he  only  truly  knows  any 
thing  of  God  who  reveals  Him  in  his  own  life. 
Christianity  is  a  power  inasmuch  and  but  just  to 
the  extent  that  it  is  a  living  fact.  Christianity 
does  not  make  Christians  but  Christians  make 
Christianity.  We  wonder  what  life  means  with 
its  cares  and  struggles,  its  trials  and  sorrows.  In 
age  or  youth  we  can  look  back  upon  an  unattained 
goal,  a  dreariness  of  routine,  a  tyranny  of  demand. 

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Alcott  the  Philosopher 

But  if  we  would  see  that  the  whole  of  life's  busi 
ness  tends  towards  growth,  that  growth  is  just 
experience  molding  us  into  better  men  and 
women,  then  we  truly  look  over  petty  mountains 
at  the  beautiful  valley  below.  When  we  can  fully 
realize  this  great  truth,  and  then  only,  we  welcome 
every  experience,  joyous  or  grievous,  that  comes 
to  us." 

Mr.  Alcott's  last  literary  effort  was  the  poem 
written  after  the  death  of  his  beloved  friend  Emer 
son,  which  he  read  at  Emerson's  funeral.  It  was 
his  final  public  word  of  mouth.  Emerson  was  his 
nearest,  dearest,  most  faithful  and  most  genuine 
friend.  He  never  recovered  from  the  shock  of  the 
poet's  death.  Not  long  after  the  funeral,  while 
he  was  correcting  the  proofs  of  a  memorial,  he 
was  stricken  with  paralysis.  The  preceding  spring 
he  had  written  forty  sonnets  arid  the  summer  fol 
lowing  delivered  fifty  lectures.  He  was  then 
eighty-three  years  of  age.  For  a  period  of  six 
years  he  lived  on,  but  as  a  helpless  invalid.  Louisa 
devoted  herself  unceasingly  to  his  care  until  com 
pelled  by  her  own  rapidly  declining  health  to  leave 
him  in  the  care  of  others. 

As  soon  as  I  heard  of  his  paralysis  I  hastened 
to  Boston.  I  wanted  to  see  him  again  and  tell 
him  once  more  what  an  inestimable  blessing  I  con 
sidered  my  connection  with  him  and  his  family 

63 


Alcott  Memoirs 

had  been  to  me.  But  I  was  unable.  His  attend 
ing  physician  had  strictly  ordered  he  should  see 
no  one  save  his  attendants.  This  denial  of  a  last 
opportunity  to  see  Amos  Bronson  Alcott  alive  was 
one  of  the  keen  disappointments  of  my  life. 

"As  the  twig  is  bent  the  tree  inclines."  During 
the  most  impressionable  period  of  my  youth  this 
kindly  good  man  shaped  and  molded  me.  He 
instilled  within  me  elements  of  character  that  now 
as  an  octogenarian  I  can  truthfully  say  I  have 
aimed,  with  I  hope  a  tiny  success,  to  make  the 
ruling  principles  of  my  life. 


VI 

ALCOTT  THE  ABOLITIONIST 

MR,  ALCOTT  at  a  very  early  period 
became  deeply  interested  in  William 
Lloyd  Garrison's  Anti-Slavery  move 
ment.     It    at    once    appealed    to    his 
broad  humanitarian  spirit  and  he  became  one  of 
its  most  ardent  advocates. 

In  1830,  Garrison  was  arrested  in  Baltimore  for 
"assault  upon  the  person"  of  a  sea  captain  who  was 
taking  a  party  of  slaves  from  that  city  to  New 
Orleans.  He  was  released  from  prison  through 
the  efforts  of  Arthur  Tappan,  a  Boston  merchant, 
and  subsequently  came  to  Boston  with  the  inten 
tion  of  creating  his  famed  Abolitionist  paper,  the 
"Liberator."  Desirous  of  giving  three  lectures  in 
the  city,  he  could  find  neither  church  nor  theater 
that  would  open  its  doors  to  him.  He  thereupon 
decided  to  address  an  open  air  meeting  on  the 
Common,  but  an  "infidel  preacher"  who  had  rented 
a  hall  in  which  he  was  holding  meetings  hospitably 
offered  its  use  to  the  young  orator  and  the  lectures 
were  given  there. 

65 


Alcott  Memoirs 

Mrs.  Alcott's  brother,  Rev.  Samuel  J.  May,  then 
in  Boston  on  a  visit,  writes  in  his  "Recollections" 
the  following  account  of  the  impression  he  received 
from  the  first  lecture:  "I  had  not  then  seen  this 
resolute  young  man.  I  had  heard  of  his  imprison 
ment,  was  eager  to  hear  him,  and  went  to  Julien 
Hall  on  the  appointed  evening.  My  brother-in- 
law,  A.  Bronson  Alcott,  and  my  cousin,  Samuel 
A.  Sewall,  accompanied  me.  Never  was  I  so  af 
fected  by  the  speech  of  man.  When  he  had  ceased 
speaking  I  said,  'This  is  a  providential  man,  we 
ought  to  know  him,  we  ought  to  help  him.  Come, 
let  us  go  and  give  him  our  hands.'  Mr.  Sewall 
and  Mr.  Alcott  went  with  me  and  we  introduced 
each  other.  Mr.  Alcott  invited  Garrison  to  his 
house.  He  came  and  we  sat  with  him  until  past 
midnight  listening  to  his  discourse.  That  night 
my  soul  was  baptized  in  his  spirit  and  ever  since 
I  have  been  a  disciple  of  and  fellow  laborer  with 
William  Lloyd  Garrison." 

Then  followed  five  years  during  which  Mr. 
Alcott,  absorbed  in  other  matters,  remained 
quiescent  in  the  Anti- Slavery  cause  but  still  as 
true  as  steel  to  principles  imbibed  from  Garrison. 
Finally,  in  1835,  Garrison  was  mobbed  in  Boston. 
By  strategy  he  was  rescued  from  the  fury  of  an 
angry  pro-slavery  mob  that  was  bent  upon  lynch 
ing  him  and  taken  to  Leverett  Street  jail.  I  think 

66 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

it  was  upon  this  occasion  he  gave  utterance  to  the 
famous  sentence:  "I  will  not  hesitate,  I  will  not 
prevaricate,  and  I  will  be  heard."  He  was  soon 
liberated,  the  excitement  died  down,  and  there  was 
another  period  of  comparative  quiet. 

In  the  meantime  the  Abolitionists  were  steadily 
gaining  ground  through  the  unwearied  efforts  of 
Garrison,  the  silver-tongued  orator  Wendell  Phil 
lips,  and  the  "Boanerges  of  New  Hampshire,"  Par 
ker  Pillsbury,  whose  nature  was  as  rugged  as  the 
granite  hills  that  encircled  his  birthplace,  yet  as  ten 
der  in  its  depth  as  a  woman's.  He  believed  with 
Wesley,  that  slavery  was  the  sum  total  of  human 
villainies  and  some  of  his  invectives  against  it  were 
vigorously  masterly  in  power  of  expression.  Sarah 
and  Angelina  Grymke,  South  Carolina  slave 
holders,  became  ardent  converts  to  Abolition,  liber 
ated  their  slaves  under  due  process  of  law,  sold 
their  Southern  estate,  and  removed  to  Philadelphia, 
where  they  joined  the  Society  of  Friends.  They 
were  both  cultured  women  gifted  with  a  brilliant 
oratory,  and  became  well  known  in  the  North  as 
anti-slavery  lecturers.  One  of  them  afterwards 
married  Theodore  Weld,  a  distinguished  New 
England  educator,  a  compeer  of  Horace  Mann, 
Stephen  and  Abbie  Kelley  Foster,  Lucretia  Mott, 
Lucy  Stone,  Theodore  Parker  and  George  Thomp 
son,  the  brilliant  Englishman  who  participated  in 

67 


Alcott  Memoirs 

the  crusade  instituted  by  William  Wilberforce  re 
sulting  in  the  banishment  of  slavery  from  all  British 
possessions.  Later  in  my  life  I  became  personally 
acquainted  with  all  I  have  here  mentioned,  save, 
of  course,  Wilberforce,  who  died  a  little  after  my 
birth. 

I  was  a  red-hot  little  Abolitionist  myself  when 
but  ten  years  of  age.  My  grandmother  sent  me 
one  afternoon  to  a  little  variety  store  in  the  vicinity 
of  our  home  to  purchase  some  few  notions  she  was 
in  need  of.  The  store  was  kept  by  an  old  couple 
who  were  ardent  Abolitionists.  In  its  rear  they 
kept  a  small  circulating  library  containing  all  the 
Anti- Slavery  books  that  had  been  published  at 
that  early  period.  While  waiting  my  turn  to  be 
served  I  spied  a  book  lying  upon  the  counter.  I 
took  it  up  and  was  soon  immersed  in  the  horrors 
of  slavery  portrayed  in  most  vivid  language.  I 
was  fascinated,  horror-stricken.  There  was  a  stool 
in  a  corner  formed  by  a  turn  in  the  counter.  I  sank 
down  upon  it  and  read  on  and  on,  oblivious  of  my 
errand,  of  the  lapse  of  time,  and  of  everything  else 
but  the  text  before  my  eyes.  I  sat  unnoticed  until 
a  maid  came  running  in.  She  had  been  sent  in 
search  of  me  by  my  grandmother,  who  had  become 
alarmed  at  my  long  absence. 

I  have  looked  back  upon  this  experience  as  a 
genuine  influence  upon  my  life.  It  introduced  me 

68 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

to  a  much  broader  sphere  of  life  than  I  could  have 
otherwise  attained.  The  old  lady  at  the  store  was 
very  kind  to  me.  Seeing  that  I  wras  interested  in 
the  subject  that  lay  so  near  her  heart,  she  encour 
aged  me  to  call  as  often  as  I  liked  and  prepared 
for  me  a  little  secluded  nook  in  the  rear  of  the  store 
where  I  could  read  to  my  heart's  content.  Soon 
she  told  me  of  the  lectures  that  were  being  given 
by  Garrison,  Phillips,  and  others.  At  once  I  was 
eager  to  attend  them.  My  grandmother  after 
much  hesitation  permitted  me  to  do  so,  accom 
panied  by  a  maid.  I  can  therefore  justly  claim 
to  have  been  figuratively  brought  up  at  the  feet  of 
these  truly  great  men  and  women  with  whom  I 
became  later  on  personally  acquainted,  and  several 
of  whom  remained  my  warm  friends  the  remainder 
of  their  lives.  I  have  never  heard  from  other  mortal 
lips  such  eloquence  as  theirs ;  it  echoes  still  through 
the  corridors  of  my  memory.  As  they  plead  the 
cause  of  the  oppressed  black  it  seemed  to  me  as  if 
their  lips  had  been  touched  with  living  coals  from 
the  altar  of  inspiration. 

Events  began  to  develop  rapidly  towards  the 
crisis  that  culminated  in  the  Civil  War.  The  mur 
der  of  Love  joy,  at  Alton,  111.,  stirred  even  the 
gentle  Emerson  to  a  white  heat.  Love  joy  was  the 
editor  and  proprietor  of  an  Abolitionist  paper  and 
his  editorial  denunciations  of  slavery  so  enraged 


Alcott  Memoirs 

the  pro-slavery  element  in  Alton  that  his  plant  was 
destroyed,  his  press  thrown  in  the  river  and  he  him 
self  murdered.  Emerson,  usually  honey-tongued, 
denounced  this  crime  in  bitter  terms,  and  the  serene 
and  dignified  Alcott  was  stirred  to  the  depths  of 
his  being.  This  crime  drew  from  Wendell  Phillips 
his  first  public  speech  for  the  cause  of  Abolition. 
It  was  a  scathing  rebuke  to  the  many  merchants 
in  Boston  who  were  in  sympathy  with  Southern 
slaveholders.  Boston  at  this  time  was  strongly 
pro-slavery  and  the  Abolitionists  were  much  in  the 
minority. 

Daniel  Webster  in  his  ambition  to  become  Presi 
dent  of  the  country  changed  his  political  views 
against,  I  fully  believe,  his  own  convictions.  With 
the  idea  of  Southern  influence  he  coalesced  with  his 
political  opponents  in  Congress  and  threw  his  able 
efforts  in  favor  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  which, 
becoming  a  law,  empowered  a  slave  holder  to  pur 
sue  a  fugitive  slave  into  any  state  in  the  Union, 
empowering  him  also  to  call  upon  the  aid  of  a 
state's  authorities  in  the  recapture  of  his  chattel 
and  the  forcing  of  him  back  into  bondage.  This 
was  the  death-blow  of  the  Whig  party.  Webster 
was  defeated  for  the  Presidential  nomination.  I 
saw  him  as  he  passed  through  Boston  on  his  way 
to  his  summer  home  at  Marshfield  after  the  Na 
tional  Convention.  He  was  met  at  a  station  just 

70 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

outside  of  the  city  and  escorted  to  his  residence 
on  Summer  Street.  I  think  he  remained  in  the 
city  but  one  night.  The  most  vivid  impression  of 
this  occasion  remaining  with  me  is  the  expression 
upon  his  face.  It  haunted  me  for  a  long  time. 
His  large,  luminous  eyes  had  lost  their  fire  and 
seemed  sunken  deep  in  their  sockets  and  his  fea 
tures  worn  and  haggard. 

The  defection  of  Webster  was  a  heavy  blow  to 
the  Abolitionist  party,  for  they  had  looked  upon 
him  as  their  strongest  and  most  able  ally,  their 
Gibraltar  in  their  fight  against  slavery.  The  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Bill,  now  a  law,  filled  them  with  conster 
nation.  Eventually,  however,  it  proved  their 
strongest  ally,  since  the  efforts  pursued  in  enforc 
ing  it  so  opened  the  eyes  of  thinking  people  to  a 
policy  that  was  bent  upon  making  a  slave-owning, 
slave-holding  Oligarchy  of  the  entire  United  States, 
that  the  ranks  of  the  Abolitionists  increased  by  tens 
of  thousands. 

The  first  attempt  made  to  enforce  this  law  was 
in  1851.  An  escaped  slave,  Shadrach,  was  arrested 
in  Boston  and  held  in  confinement  awaiting  the  ar 
rival  of  his  master,  who  had  been  notified  of  his 
arrest.  Through  a  well-planned  assault  by  some 
of  the  Abolitionists,  Shadrach  wras  rescued  and  the 
law  frustrated. 

In  1854  occurred  the  famous  Anthony  Burns 

71 


Alcott  Memoirs 

episode.  The  Alcotts  had  returned  to  Boston 
again  and  were  living  at  the  old  house  near  the 
corner  of  High  and  Summer  Streets.  I  was  with 
them  at  the  time.  Burns,  an  escaped  Virginia 
slave,  was  arrested  in  Boston  and  imprisoned  in 
the  court  house.  This  created  great  indignation 
among  Abolitionists,  who  protested  that  the  court 
house  should  not  be  converted  into  a  slave-pen. 
Judge  Shaw,  a  most  dignified  jurist,  condemned 
Burns  to  be  returned  to  his  master  and,  until  the 
latter's  arrival  from  Virginia,  to  remain  imprisoned 
in  the  court  house.  The  sentence  was  received  with 
an  intense  excitement  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
city  alone  but  pervading  the  whole  state  of  Massa 
chusetts. 

To  my  astonishment  I  saw  the  serene,  gentle, 
non-resistant  Alcott  transformed  into  a  warlike  bel 
ligerent.  As  soon  as  Burns  was  arrested  he  imme 
diately  started  for  Worcester  to  enlist  for  the  work 
of  rescue  the  assistance  of  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson,  returning  with  him  to  Boston.  An 
Abolitionist  vigilance  committee  had  been  formed 
soon  after  the  Shadrach  affair  to  meet  like  emer 
gencies.  Mr.  Alcott  had  been  faithful  in  his  at 
tendance  upon  all  the  meetings  of  this  committee 
from  its  incipiency.  A  plan  was  at  once  formed  for 
the  rescue  of  Burns.  At  the  appointed  time  for 
this  rescue,  an  Anti-Slavery  Convention  was  being 

72 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  bringing  together  many  peo 
ple  from  all  over  the  state.  The  authorities  became 
suspicious  that  an  attempt  at  rescue  was  possible 
and  stationed  a  marshal  in  the  court  house  with  a 
strong  force  of  men.  Previously  to  the  trial  the  en 
trances  had  been  protected  with  strong  iron  chains. 
The  rumor  that  the  rescue  would  be  attempted 
flew  like  wild-fire,  bringing  to  the  vicinity  of  the 
Court  Square  the  greater  number  of  an  audience 
of  curiosity  mongers  from  the  Anti-Slavery  meet 
ing  being  held  in  Faneuil  Hall.  The  Abolitionist 
portion  of  the  audience  at  this  meeting  were,  with 
their  leaders,  nearest  the  platform  and  consequently 
their  fellows,  posted  about  the  court  house,  found 
themselves  surrounded  by  an  antagonistic  or  in 
different  crowd  instead  of  their  sympathizers  and 
fellow  rescuers.  But  a  door  was  forced  open  never 
theless,  two  Abolitionists  rushed  through  it,  were 
overpowered,  and  ejected  by  the  guards.  During 
the  melee  a  sheriff's  deputy  named  Batchelder  was 
slain.  Thus  was  shed  the  very  first  blood  in  the 
direct  issue  that  was  to  result  in  the  Civil  War.  In 
a  few  moments  the  confusion  was  over,  the  sheriff's 
posse  within  the  court  house  and  the  rescuers 
huddled  about  the  court  house  stairway,  inactive, 
but  with  drawn  pistols  covering  the  broken  door. 
Within  could  be  seen  the  brilliantly  lighted  empty 
hallway.  After  a  moment  of  tense,  nerve-racking, 

73 


Alcott  Memoirs 

silence  there  emerged  from  the  crowd,  deliberately 
and  with  an  attitude  of  great  peace  in  his  venerable 
manner,  Amos  Bronson  Alcott,  philosopher,  poet, 
writer,  dreamer.  As  he  ascended  the  steps  alone, 
his  familiar  cane  tapping  the  stone  with  a  start- 
lingly  clear  and  leisurely  sound,  he  paused.  Turn 
ing  to  one  of  the  ejected  rescuers,  he  asked  calmly: 
"Why  are  we  not  within?" 

"Because,"  came  the  answer,  "these  people  will 
not  stand  by  us." 

Without  a  word  Mr.  Alcott  placidly  continued 
his  ascent,  still  slowly  tapping  his  cane  from  step 
to  step.  A  revolver  shot  was  heard  within,  the 
bullet  speeding  past  him  without  injury  or  in  any 
sense  affecting  his  motion.  But  just  ere  entering 
the  door  he  paused  again,  turned,  and  without  in 
the  slightest  manner  accentuating  or  retarding  his 
pace,  retraced  his  steps.  Marcus  Aurelius  or  Epic- 
tetus  might  have  been  garbed  in  broadcloth  upon 
the  Boston  court  house  steps,  so  like  to  their  at 
titude  was  that  of  this  venerable  man. 

The  excitement  about  the  city  intensified.  A 
crowd  constantly  filled  Court  Square  by  day  and 
by  night.  The  slave  prisoner  was  guarded  with 
most  zealous  care.  Access  to  him  was  even  denied 
lawyers  and  judges  who  had  no  connection  with 
the  case.  Wealthy  citizens  offered  to  buy  the  man 
from  his  owner  but  he  refused  all  offers.  He  wras 

74 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

bent,  he  said,  upon  winning  the  prestige  of  having 
defeated  "the  damned  Abolitionists,"  and  was 
"bound  to  take  the  nigger  back  if  all  hell  stood  in 
my  way." 

One  day  it  was  rumored  the  residence  of  Wen 
dell  Phillips  would  be  mobbed  upon  the  next  even 
ing  and  a  delegation  was  chosen  from  the  Vigi 
lance  Committee  to  guard  the  house  and  family. 
Mr.  Alcott  was  one  of  the  number  and,  as  the  oth 
ers,  was  armed  with  a  revolver.  Just  after  dark 
Theodore  Parker  came  to  the  house  and  went  up 
to  Mrs.  Phillips'  room  where  she,  being  an  invalid, 
was  confined,  telling  her  she  must  arise  and  go  with 
him  as  the  house  was  liable  to  attack  any  moment. 
Mr.  Phillips  was  not  at  home.  For  a  moment  Mrs. 
Phillips  was  badly  frightened ;  then  the  true  mettle 
within  her  asserted  itself  and  she  refused  to  leave. 
While  Mr.  Parker  was  pleading  Mr.  Phillips  re 
turned  and,  upon  learning  of  the  situation,  sus 
tained  his  wife  in  her  attitude,  scoffing  at  the  idea 
of  flight. 

The  body  guard  had  by  that  time  arrived  and, 
despite  Mr.  Phillips'  protestations,  went  upon  duty. 
Nothing  occurred;  and  it  was  afterwards  learned 
the  mayor  had  placed  a  strong  force  of  policemen 
within  a  wide  circle  about  the  house  to  frustrate 
any  lawless  action.  The  next  morning,  Mr.  Al 
cott,  having  breakfasted  with  Mr.  Phillips,  arrived 

75 


Alcott  Memoirs 

home  just  as  we  were  rising  from  the  table.  He 
laid  his  pistol  upon  a  side  table  and  we  gathered 
about  him  eager  for  the  news  of  the  night.  The 
picture  of  the  two  younger  girls  comes  vividly  be 
fore  me  as  I  write.  They  stood  with  an  expression 
of  wonder  and  awe  upon  their  faces  glancing  first 
at  the  revolver  and  then  up  at  their  father.  I  do 
not  suppose  either  of  them  had  ever  before  seen 
such  a  weapon.  As  for  Mr.  Alcott,  I  doubt  if  he 
knew  the  breech  of  the  weapon  from  the  barrel. 
With  his  Buddhistic  reverence  for  life  he  had  never 
trampled  upon  an  insect.  As  I  look  back,  I  can 
not  imagine  either  Mr.  Alcott  or  Mr.  Emerson  in 
connection  with  firearms  and  I  do  not  believe 
either  of  them  knew  how  to  even  manipulate  a 
trigger.  Yet  both  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree 
the  qualifications  that,  in  emergency,  would  give 
birth  to  true  courage.  This  they  both  exemplified, 
as  did  Thoreau  also,  all  through  their  Abolition 
experience. 

Finally  came  the  crucial  hour  in  the  excitement 
that  had  held  the  city  in  thrall  for  days ;  an  excite 
ment,  it  was  said,  unequaled  since  the  Tea  Party  in 
Boston  Harbor;  the  day  Anthony  Burns  was  to 
be  legally  returned  to  bondage  by  a  government 
that  constitutionally  guaranteed  to  all  its  citizens 
the  inalienable  right  "to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur 
suit  of  happiness."  All  business  was  suspended  this 

76 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

Friday,  June  2nd,  1854.  I  stood  in  Court  Square 
a  witness  to  this  never-to-be-forgotten  scene.  The 
streets  were  thronged  with  people  notwithstanding 
the  mayor's  proclamation  warning  the  populace  to 
stay  within  their  homes.  Through  Court  Square, 
Court  Street,  and  the  entire  length  of  State  Street 
to  Long  Wharf,  where  a  United  States  Revenue 
cutter  lay  ready  to  carry  back  to  Virginia  this 
negro  slave,  many  houses  were  draped  in  black,  and 
the  sidewalks  were  a  seething  mass. 

First  in  the  procession  marched  a  force  of  militia 
followed  by  a  strong  body  of  openly-armed  police. 
Behind  these  came  a  detachment  of  marines  from 
a  fort  in  Boston  Harbor,  dragging  two  field  pieces. 
Directly  behind  these  marched  over  a  hundred  ma 
rines  with  drawn  cutlasses.  They  were  formed  in 
a  hollow  square,  in  the  center  of  which  walked  An 
thony  Burns,  the  black,  with  his  white  master  hold 
ing  a  handcuff  to  his  slave's  wrist.  I  could  look 
directly  into  the  negro's  face.  He  had  a  well- 
shaped  head,  more  Caucasian  than  African  in  out 
line,  and  an  intelligent  face  with  the  saddest  of 
expression  upon  it.  The  procession  was  greeted 
until  it  turned  into  State  Street  with  hoots,  groans, 
and  hisses  by  the  Abolitionists,  which  in  turn 
drowned  and  were  drowned  by  the  cheers  of  the 
pro-slavery  element  in  the  crowd. 

As  the  flash  light  of  my  memory  is  turned  back 

77 


Alcott  Memoirs 

to  that  scene  after  a  lapse  of  fifty-eight  years,  it 
stands  out  as  vividly  as  yesterday  and  I  can  re-feel 
the  impression  it  produced  upon  me.  Upon  some 
faces  there  rested  an  intense  concentrated  look  as  if 
the  soul  within  were  being  stirred  to  its  prof  oundest 
depths.  Upon  others,  a  sullen  determined  expres 
sion  suggestive  of  drawn  weapon  and  clenched  fist. 
I  wormed  my  way  behind  the  hollow  square.  Less 
than  half-way  to  the  wharf  there  was  complete  si 
lence,  a  sort  of  awesome  hush,  as  if  by  a  grave,  save 
but  for  the  clank  of  scabbard  and  the  tramp  of 
marching  feet.  A  man  close  to  me  said :  "It's  like 
a  military  funeral  without  a  military  dirge."  I  can 
hear  that  man's  voice  still,  so  solemn  and  intense  it 
was. 

When  I  returned  home  quivering  with  excite 
ment  at  the  history  I  had  witnessed,  Mr.  Alcott 
listened  to  me  intently  without  a  word  of  comment. 
He  spoke  not  a  word  the  rest  of  the  day,  except  the 
grace  at  evening  meal  which  came  from  his  lips  in 
slow  and  measured  phrase. 

I  am  perforce  writing  history  as  I  trace  these 
lines;  but  not  calmly,  phlegmatically,  as  historians 
record.  As  I  have  previously  said  and  will  likely 
say  again  ere  this  book  is  completed,  these  pages 
are  in  the  main  but  partial  memories  of  my  boy 
hood  and  young  manhood.  That  history  which  is 
interwoven  therewith  has  been  immortally  chron- 

78 


Alcott  the  Abolitionist 

icled  by  abler  hands  than  mine.  As  I  lay  down 
my  pen  at  the  end  of  this  page  I  see  and  think 
of  but  intimate  personal  detail  dating  back  many 
years  and  not  the  historical  facts  connected  thereto. 


79 


VII 

FRUITLANDS 

CHARLES     LANE,     the     Englishman 
whose  means  permitted  the  launching  of 
the  Fruitlands  experiment,  was  a  con 
tributor    to    the    Dial,    an    enthusiastic 
transcendentalist,  and  a  keen  admirer  of  Emerson, 
Thoreau,  and  Alcott,  particularly  the  latter. 

Fruitlands  was  about  three  miles  from  the  town 
of  Harvard,  and  scarcely  a  full  mile  from  Still 
River  Village.  Its  distance  from  Boston  was  about 
thirty  miles.  It  had  been  an  unnamed  land-worn 
farm  of  about  ninety  acres  ere  Mr.  Lane  and  Mr. 
Alcott  bought  it  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a 
modern  utopia.  The  persons  actually  becoming 
members  of  the  community  they  aimed  to  establish 
were,  in  addition  to  Mr.  Lane  and  his  son,  William, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott  and  their  four  daughters- 
eight  in  number — one  woman,  Anna  Page,  arid 
seven  men,  Isaac  Hecker,  afterwards  known  as 
"Father"  Hecker,  Christopher  Green,  Joseph 
Palmer,  Abraham  Everett,  Samuel  Lamed, 
Charles  Bowers,  and  H.  C.  Wright,  an  English 
man,  who  remained  but  a  few  weeks.  The  entire 

80 


Fruitlands 

experiment  lasted  less  than  a  year  and  ere  the  ex 
piration  of  that  time  some  of  the  party  left  the  com 
munity  for  a  practical  mode  of  life  elsewhere,  leav 
ing,  at  the  final  abandonment  of  the  scheme,  but  the 
Alcotts. 

Mr.  Lane's  enthusiasm  at  the  outset  is  exam- 
pled  in  a  letter  to  Thoreau  in  which  he  said:  "Fruit- 
lands  is  very  remotely  placed  without  a  road,  sur 
rounded  by  a  beautiful  green  landscape  of  fields 
and  woods.  On  the  estate  are  about  fourteen  acres 
of  wood ;  a  very  sylvan  realization  which  only  needs 
a  Thoreau's  mind  to  elevate  it  to  classic  beauty. 
The  nearest  little  copse  we  have  designed  as  the 
site  for  little  cottages.  Fountains  can  be  made  to 
descend  from  their  granite  sources  on  the  hill-slope 
to  every  cottage.  Gardens  are  to  displace  the 
warm  grazing  grounds  on  the  south ;  and  numerous 
human  beings,  instead  of  cattle,  shall  here  enjoy 
existence.  The  farther  wood  offers  to  the  natural 
ist  and  the  poet  an  exhaustless  haunt;  and  a  short 
cleaning  of  the  brook  would  connect  our  boat  with 
the  Nashua.  Such  are  the  designs  which  Mr.  Al- 
cott  and  I  have  just  sketched  as  resting  from  plant 
ing  we  walked  around  this  reserve." 

It  was  but  a  little  time,  however,  ere  Mr.  Lane's 
enthusiasm  began  to  wane.  Mrs.  Alcott,  who  had 
to  bear  the  full  burden  of  housework  for  a  family 
of  sixteen  people,  told  me  a  great  deal  about  it 

81 


Alcott  Memoirs 

in  after  years,  saying  she  marveled  she  came  out 
of  it  alive.  She  could  not  afford  help,  the  other 
adults  were  engaged  in  the  manual  labor  attached 
to  working  the  place,  her  children  were  young,  the 
oldest  thirteen  and  the  youngest  three.  "I  worked 
like  a  galley  slave,  Llewellyn,"  she  said,  "but 
mercifully  the  crash  came  in  a  few  months  or  I 
should  have  died."  In  after  years,  Louisa,  being 
asked  in  my  presence  if  there  had  been  any  beasts 
of  burden  at  Fruitlands,  replied,  "There  was  but 
one  and  she  a  woman." 

The  bill  of  fare  was  a  dietetic  curiosity,  Mrs. 
Alcott  told  me.  Mr.  Alcott  would  not  tolerate 
any  food  derived  directly  or  indirectly  from  any 
animal  and  was  enthusiastically  autocratic  in  de 
manding  obedience  to  his  wishes.  Animal  food  or 
its  substances,  he  claimed,  were  poisonous,  pol 
luted  the  body,  and  through  it  penetrated  and  de 
filed  the  soul.  Tea  and  coffee  were  tabooed  and 
water  the  only  beverage.  All  bread  was  made  from 
unbolted  flour  or  a  mixture  of  barley  and  graham 
meal.  Mr.  Alcott  insisted  too  that  preference  be 
given  vegetables  that  matured  above  the  ground, 
though  they  did  eat  potatoes,  beets,  and  radishes. 

I  was  staying  at  the  Bowles  Willard  farm  in  the 
town  of  Harvard  in  the  early  summer  of  1843. 
Shortly  after  my  arrival  there  I  heard  a  deal  of 
gossip  concerning  some  very  strange  people  who 

82 


Fruitlands 

were  living  about  three  miles  out.  Much  of  this 
gossip  was  exaggeration,  some  of  it,  fiction,  but 
many  points  about  it  were  based  upon  fact  and 
confirmed  to  me  within  the  next  few  years  by 
Mrs.  Alcott.  The  farmers  of  the  surrounding 
neighborhood  were  uproariously  hilarious  over  the 
methods  of  this  craft  as  pursued  at  Fruitlands  and 
particularly  because  Mr.  Alcott  would  not  permit 
the  land-worn  acres  to  be  enriched  upon  the  theory 
that  it  was  an  insult  to  nature  to  scatter  any  fer 
tilizer  upon  her  bosom  and  that  the  forcing  of  her 
processes  was  wholly  unjustifiable.  Much  sarcas 
tic  comment  was  occasioned  too  over  the  fact  that 
there  was  neither  a  horse,  nor  a  cow,  nor  a  pig, 
nor  even  any  poultry  upon  the  place.  Mr.  Al- 
cott's  reasons  for  this  convulsed  the  surrounding 
tillers  of  the  soil.  He  contended  animals  had  equal 
rights  as  to  life,  liberty,  and  happiness,  with  man 
kind.  The  cow  should  not  be  robbed  of  her  milk 
which  belonged  to  her  calf.  Chickens  had  the  same 
right  to  life  as  human  babies.  He  even  went  to 
the  extreme  of  directing  that  the  canker  worms  in 
festing  the  ancient  apple  trees  at  Fruitlands  should 
in  no  wise  be  disturbed,  saying  they  had  the  same 
right  to  the  fruit  he  had.  All  of  these  things  were 
commented  upon  in  Harvard,  the  farmers  saying: 
"They  have  a  lot  of  crazy  fools  out  there." 

I  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  frequent  walks  with 

83 


Alcott  Memoirs 

a  young  woman  some  years  my  senior  while  at 
Bowles  Willard  farm  and  upon  one  of  them  told 
her  of  what  I  had  heard.  She  replied:  "You 
must  not  believe  all  the  idle  gossip  of  the  country 
side.  I  have  been  to  see  these  people  and  they  are 
refined,  educated  folk.  Mrs.  Alcott  is  a  fascinating 
woman,  her  husband  is  a  man  of  charm,  and  the 
second  daughter  is  as  bright  as  a  new  steel  trap." 
I  suggested  we  walk  in  their  direction  and  that  she 
present  me.  She  agreed,  but  upon  looking  for  her 
gloves,  found  she  had  left  them  at  home.  She 
would  not  listen  to  my  importuning  that  she  go 
without  them  and,  to  my  disappointment,  decided 
our  walk  should  continue  in  the  direction  we  had 
originally  planned.  That  evening  she  was  taken  ill 
and  shortly  after  returned  to  Boston.  I  could  not, 
boy  that  I  was,  very  well  go  to  Fruitlands  alone, 
so  I  not  only  lost  the  opportunity  but  a  full  year 
elapsed  ere  I  made  acquaintance  with  the  family. 
Many  people  at  that  time  deemed  Mr.  Alcott 
and  Mr.  Lane  insane.  This  belief  has  been  dis 
cussed  in  a  book  by  Dr.  Tuke,  an  English  alienist, 
who  visited  this  country  in  1885.  He  says:  "Was 
Alcott  insane?  That  such  a  man  could  induce 
others  to  imitate  him  and  found  such  a  community 
as  at  the  farm  of  Fruitlands  in  Massachusetts 
would  astonish  were  it  an  isolated  case.  But  other 
persons  passed  through  very  similar  phases  about 

84 


Fruitlands 

the  same  period  in  America.  In  an  exhaustive 
study  of  Mr.  Alcott,  who  interested  me  very  much, 
I  find  no  evidence  whatsoever  of  mental  disease, 
and  I  regard  his  Fruitlands  idea  as  but  an  illustra 
tion  of  that  peculiar  psychological  condition  which 
under  abnormal  religious  thought,  will  develop  ec 
centric  courses.  A  cold  winter  was  sufficient  to 
convert  Mr.  Alcott  to  common  sense  notions." 

Mr.  Alcott  himself  in  after  years  looked  back 
upon  Fruitlands  with  a  philosophical  smile  as  he 
spoke  of  the  extreme  Utopianism  of  his  acts  there. 
One  day,  while  I  was  with  him  upon  the  street  in 
Boston,  he  met  a  friend  who  had  experienced  fail 
ure  in  a  long  cherished  plan  of  business,  and  said 
to  him:  "That  is  failure  when  a  man's  ideas  ruin 
him,  when  he  is  dwarfed  mentally  by  it.  But  when 
he  is  ever  growing  by  it,  does  not  lose  himself  in 
any  partial  or  complete  failure,  his  substance  is 
success,  whatever  it  may  seem  to  the  world." 

In  her  "Transcendental  Wild  Oats,"  Louisa, 
speaking  of  Fruitlands,  says:  "Brother  Lion  (Mr. 
Lane)  domineered  over  the  whole  concern,  for 
having  the  most  money  in  the  speculation,  was  re 
solved  to  make  it  pay,  as  if  anything  founded  upon 
an  ideal  basis  could  be  expected  to  do  so,  except 
by  enthusiasts.  Abel  Lamb  (her  father)  simply 
reveled  in  the  newness,  firmly  believing  that  his 
dream  was  to  be  beautifully  realized,  and  in  time, 

85 


Alcott  Memoirs 

not  only  little  Fruitlands  but  the  whole  earth  would 
be  turned  into  a  Happy  Valley.  He  worked  with 
every  muscle  in  his  body,  for  he  was  deeply  in 
earnest.  He  taught  with  his  whole  head  and  heart, 
planned  and  sacrificed,  preached  and  prophesied, 
with  a  soul  full  of  the  purest  aspirations,  most  un 
selfish  purposes  and  desires  for  a  life  devoted  to 
God  and  man,  too  high  and  tender  to  bear  the 
rough  usage  of  the  world." 

Ere  the  collapse  of  the  scheme  Mr.  Lane  and 
Mr.  Alcott  visited  New  York  and  called  upon  Mrs. 
Child,  who  in  a  letter  said :  "Alcott  and  Lane  have 
called  to  see  me.  I  asked:  'What  brings  you  to 
New  York?'  'We  do  not  know  ourselves,'  replied 
Alcott.  My  husband  and  John  Hopper  were  pres 
ent  the  next  day  at  a  discussion  between  Alcott, 
Lane,  and  W.  H.  Channing.  tTpon  his  return  I 
asked  him  what  the  conversation  was  about.  'Lane,' 
he  said,  'divided  man  into  three  states,  the  discon- 
scious,  the  conscious,  and  the  unconscious.  The  dis- 
conscious  was  the  state  of  swine,  the  conscious  a 
baptism  by  water,  the  unconscious  a  baptism  by 
fire.'  I  laughed  and  said,  'I  cannot  get  that  clear  in 
my  mind.'  'Well,'  he  replied,  'after  I  heard  them 
talk  for  a  few  minutes  I  did  not  think  I  had  any 
mind  at  all.  They  talked  about  mind  and  body,  but 
as  far  as  I  could  understand  they  seemed  to  think 
the  body  was  a  sham.' ' 

86 


VIII 

EMERSON 

1    SHALL  never  forget  the  impression  made 
upon  my  boyish  mind  at  my  first  meeting 
with    Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     I  was  too 
young  to  form  an  opinion  of  value  at  the 
time,  but  in  later  years  I  sensed  the  meaning  of  it 
to  me  and  realized  the  part  this  man  of  kindly  and 
charming  personality  had,  consciously  or  uncon 
sciously  to  him,  played  in  shaping  my  life  course 
and  helping  me  to  do  what  it  has  been  given  me  to 
do  in  the  something  over  seventy  years  that  have 
intervened. 

I  came  in  contact  with  him  many  times  ere  reach 
ing  maturity;  in  every  instance  with  a  recurrence, 
to  a  less  profound  degree,  of  this  first  impression. 
I  did  not  quite  know  upon  any  of  these  occasions 
what  this  meant.  I  only  recall  wdth  a  keen  vivid 
ness,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  the  sweet,  gracious 
personality  of  the  man,  his  wonderfully  benevolent 
face,  the  tender  sunshine  of  his  eye,  the  indescrib 
able  gentleness  of  his  voice.  Without  knowing  or 
even  wondering  why,  I  felt  as  if  under  the  soothing 

87 


Alcott  Memoirs 

spell  of  all  I  describe. 

It  has  been  written  that  "a  vast  number  of  ob 
jects  must  lie  before  us  ere  we  can  think  about  them 
with  understanding."  So  are  vast  funds  of  ex 
perience  essential  ere  we  can  realize  the  one  or  the 
ten  that  have  molded  our  mental  and  moral  quali 
ties  into  whatever  they  may  be.  I  look  back  upon 
my  contact  with  this  greatest  American  man  of 
letters  as  if  a  window  had  been  thrown  open  and 
through  it  entered  all  that  was  sweet  and  lovely, 
gracious  and  true.  Years  afterwards,  long  ere  this 
impression  had  become  as  a  part  of  me,  when  hear 
ing  of  or  reading  Emerson,  I  read  Carlyle's  de 
scription  of  Emerson's  first  visit  to  him : 

"He  came  from  Dumfries  in  an  old  rusty  gig- 
came  one  day  and  vanished  the  next.  I  had  never 
heard  of  him.  He  gave  us  his  brief  biography. 
We  took  a  walk  while  dinner  was  being  prepared. 
We  were  glad  to  see  him  and  gave  him  welcome. 
I  did  not  then  adequately  recognize  his  genius 
but  we  thought  him  a  beautiful  transparent  soul 
and  he  was  ever  after  a  very  pleasant  object  to  us 
in  the  distance.  Now  and  then  a  letter  comes  from 
him  amid  the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  world ;  it  is  al 
ways  as  a  window  thrown  open  to  the  azure." 

I  had  gone  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott  and  the 
four  girls  to  tea  at  Emerson's  home.  As  I  was 
presented  to  him  and  looked  up  into  his  strong, 

88 


Emerson 

sweet  face  he  placed  his  hand  upon  my  head  and 
said  a  few  words  to  me.  I  do  not  now  remember 
what  they  were.  But  I  still  feel  their  kindly  flower- 
like  fairness  and,  later  in  my  life,  I  understood 
what  Margaret  Fuller  meant  when  she  said:  "It 
is  his  beautiful  presence  that  I  prize  more  than  his 
intellectual  companionship." 

I  remember  upon  that  first  occasion,  as  well  as 
many  others,  either  at  his  home  or  the  home  of 
the  Alcotts,  his  tender,  chivalrous  devotion  to  his 
aged  mother  whose  countenance  expressed  all  the 
beatitudes  in  a  dignified,  gentle  manner.  I  have 
many  times  seen  Emerson,  Alcott,  and  Thoreau 
together.  The  friendship  between  them  was  very 
profound;  and  between  Alcott  and  Emerson  a 
very  beautiful  thing  that  seemed  to  spring  from  a 
deeply  understanding  sympathy  and  a  staunch 
steadfastness  at  the  time  when  Alcott  was  much 
maligned  and  ridiculed. 

Alcott  has  written  of  Emerson:  "His  life  is 
like  an  antique  marble  full  of  undying  beauty." 

And  Emerson  has  written  of  Alcott:  "He  is 
the  most  Godlike  man  I  have  ever  seen.  His  pres 
ence  rebukes,  threatens  and  uplifts." 

Much  has  been  written  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emer 
son.  Nothing  I  could  add  would  matter.  It  was 
my  high  privilege  to  have  received  the  blessing  of 
his  influence  when  a  little  boy  and  I  bow  my  sil- 

89 


Alcott  Memoirs 

vered  head  in  gratitude.    To  use  his  own  words  he 
gave  to  me: 

"That  great  and  grave  transition, 
Which  may  not  king  or  priest  or  conqueror  spare, 
And  yet  a  babe  can  bear." 


90 


IX 

THOREAU 

I    HAVE  a  keen  recollection  of  the  first  time 
I  met  Henry  David  Thoreau.    It  was  upon 
a  beautiful  day  in  July,  1847,  that  Mrs.  Al 
cott  told  us  we  were  to  visit  Walden.     We 
started  merrily  a  party  of  seven,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Alcott,  the  four  girls  and  myself,  for  the  woods 
of  oak  and  pine  that  encircled  the  picturesque  lit 
tle  lake  called  Walden  Pond.    We  found  Thoreau 
in  his  cabin,  a  plain  little  house  of  one  room  con 
taining  a  wood  stove. 

He  gave  us  gracious  welcome,  asking  us  within. 
For  a  time  he  talked  with  Mr.  Alcott  in  a  voice  and 
with  a  manner  in  which,  boy  as  I  was,  I  detected  a 
something  akin  with  Emerson.  He  was  a  tall  and 
rugged-looking  man,  straight  as  a  pine  tree.  His, 
nose  was  strong,  dominating  his  face,  and  his  eyes 
as  keen  as  an  eagle's.  He  seemed  to  speak  with 
them,  to  take  in  all  about  him  in  one  vigorous 
glance.  His  brows  were  shaggy  as  in  people 
who  observe  rather  than  see. 

He  was  talking  to  Mr.  Alcott  of  the  wild  flowers 
in  Walden  woods  when,  suddenly  stopping,  he 

91 


Alcott  Memoirs 

said:  "Keep  very  still  and  I  will  show  you  my 
family."  Stepping  quickly  outside  the  cabin  door, 
he  gave  a  low  and  curious  whistle;  immediately  a 
woodchuck  came  running  towards  him  from  a 
nearby  burrow.  With  varying  note,  yet  still  low 
and  strange,  a  pair  of  gray  squirrels  were  sum 
moned  and  approached  him  fearlessly.  With  still 
another  note  several  birds,  including  two  crows, 
flew  towards  him,  one  of  the  crows  nestling  upon 
his  shoulder.  I  remember  it  was  the  crow  resting 
close  to  his  head  that  made  the  most  vivid  impres 
sion  upon  me,  knowing  how  fearful  of  man  this 
bird  is.  He  fed  them  all  from  his  hand,  taking 
food  from  his  pocket,  and  petted  them  gently  be 
fore  our  delighted  gaze;  and  then  dismissed  them 
by  different  whistling,  always  strange  and  low  and 
short,  each  little  wild  thing  departing  instantly  at 
hearing  its  special  signal. 

Then  he  took  us  five  children  upon  the  Pond  in 
his  boat,  ceasing  his  oars  after  a  little  distance  from 
the  shore  and  playing  the  flute  he  had  brought  with 
him,  its  music  echoing  over  the  still  and  beautifully 
clear  water.  He  suddenly  laid  the  flute  down  and 
told  us  stories  of  the  Indians  that  "long  ago"  had 
lived  about  Walden  and  Concord;  delighting  us 
with  simple,  clear  explanations  of  the  wonders  of 
Walden  woods.  Again  he  interrupted  himself  sud 
denly,  speaking  of  the  various  kinds  of  lilies  grow- 

92 


Thoreau 

ing  about  Walden  and  calling  the  wood  lilies, 
stately  wild  things.  It  was  pond  lily  time  and  from 
the  boat  we  gathered  quantities  of  rtheir  pure  white 
flowers  and  buds;  upon  our  return  to  the  shore  he 
helped  us  gather  other  flowers  and  laden  with  many 
sweet  blossoms,  we  wended  our  way  homewards  re 
joicingly.  As  we  were  going  he  said  to  me:  "Boy, 
you  look  tired  and  sleepy;  remember,  sleep  is  half 
a  dinner." 

I  saw  him  afterwards  very  many  times  in  the 
company  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  Mr.  Emer 
son  and  Mr.  Alcott.  He  often  came  to  our  home; 
indeed,  aside  from  visits  to  his  father,  mother,  sis 
ters,  and  Mr.  Emerson,  he  visited  no  one  else. 
Upon  some  of  these  occasions  I  remember  him  say 
ing  "that  he  had  a  great  deal  of  company  in  the 
morning  when  nobody  called;"  and  "I  have  never 
found  the  companion  who  is  so  companionable  as 
solitude."  I  also  remember,  "in  Walden  Woods  I 
hunt  with  a  glass ;  for  a  gun  gives  you  but  the  body 
while  a  glass  gives  you  the  bird."  He  possessed  to 
an  uncanny  degree  a  knowledge  of  flowers,  plants, 
and  trees.  He  kept  a  careful  calendar  of  the 
shrubs  and  flora  about  Walden  and  showed  it  me 
in  explanation  many  times. 

The  land  upon  which  his  cabin  was  built  had 
been  given  him  by  Emerson;  the  cabin  he  built 
himself  at  a  cost  of  less  than  thirty  dollars  and  for 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

the  first  nine  months  of  his  life  in  it  his  expenses 
amounted  to  sixty-two  dollars.  He  thus  proved 
that  most  of  us  waste  our  time  and  substance  upon 
superficialities,  that  one  hundred  dollars  per  year 
will  suffice  for  one's  living  expenses,  and  that,  best 
of  all,  one  could  really  live  and  still  have  two-thirds 
of  one's  time  to  one's  self. 

Perhaps  no  single  figure  among  American  liter 
ary  men  has  moved  so  many  able  pens  in  essay 
and  biography  as  Henry  David  Thoreau.  Here 
again,  as  in  my  reminiscences  of  Emerson,  aught 
I  could  add  would  not  matter. 

This  is  but  a  record  of  youthful  memory;  its 
aim  is  to  compass  nothing  else.  During  the  nearly 
sixty  years  since  Thoreau's  death  I  have  read,  I 
think,  all  that  has  been  said  about  him.  But  among 
it  nothing  has,  nor  do  I  believe  ever  will,  be  bet 
ter  said  than  a  paragraph  from  Emerson's  funeral 
tribute  to  his  dead  friend:  "He  has  in  a  short  life 
exhausted  the  capabilities  of  this  world;  wherever 
there  is  knowledge,  wherever  there  is  virtue,  wher 
ever  there  is  beauty,  he  will  find  a  home." 


X 

MARGARET   FULLER 

OF   gifted  Margaret  Fuller  I  retain  a 
most  vivid  impression.    She  often  visited 
the  Alcptts  during  my  life  with  them.    I 
remember  one  occasion  when  at  tea  in 
the   Alcott's   Concord  home,   Emerson,   Thoreau, 
Hawthorne,  and  Margaret  Fuller  sat  at  the  table 
with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott,  Louisa,  her  three  sisters, 
and  myself.    I  have  long  since  realized  this  was  a 
golden  hour  in  my  life;  that  six  of  the  eleven  peo 
ple  about  that  kindly  board  were  destined,  each  in 
their  own  particular  literary  sphere,  to  ultimate 
lofty  status  in  American  letters. 

Margaret  Fuller  was  a  "beautifully  plain"  young 
woman.  Physically  she  was  a  robust  person,  tall, 
and  with  a  certain  stateliness  though  inclined  to 
corpulency.  She  wTas  possessed  of  expressive  gray 
eyes,  a  wealth  of  reddish  brown  hair,  a  colorless 
complexion,  and  magnificent  teeth,  which  she 
showed  constantly  while  speaking.  Despite  a 
queenly  carriage  to  the  head  she  had  nothing  of 
what  is  called  "handsome"  in  its  application  to  a 
woman.  She  had  a  habit  of  incessantly  opening 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

and  closing  her  eyes,  rather  than  "winking,"  and 
her  voice  was  nasal  in  tone.  But  her  whole  face, 
notwithstanding  her  mannerisms,  was  stamped 
with  individuality  and  her  manner  full  of  a  studious 
dignity.  Her  genius  found  its  best  expression  in 
conversation  wherein  she  had  a  most  extraordinary 
ability.  Before  she  was  thirty  she  was  thoroughly 
conversant  with  French,  German,  Spanish,  and 
Italian,  as  well  as  her  native  English,  and  was 
also  an  accomplished  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew 
scholar.  She  had  Plato,  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and 
Horace  at  her  fingers'  ends.  She  had  a  most  keen 
regard  for  Mr.  Alcott  and  discoursed  much  with 
him  upon  the  writings  and  philosophy  of  these  an 
cient  masters. 

I  remember  hearing  her  speak  with  Mr.  Alcott 
of  her  experiences  in  teaching  French  and  Latin 
in  that  philosopher's  Boston  school  in  1837,  and 
mentally  recording  I  was  only  seven  years  old  at 
that  time.  As  a  little  boy  and  a  recognized  mem 
ber  of  the  family,  Margaret  Fuller  has  spoken  to 
me  perhaps  forty  times,  simple  words  of  greeting 
whose  substance  I  do  not  remember  save  that  upon 
one  occasion  she  mentioned  she  was  twenty-one 
years  my  senior  and  that  her  birthplace  in  Cam 
bridge  was  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  house  in 
which  I  first  saw  the  light  upon  January  29th,  1830. 

Her  career  as  advisory  professor  to  Harvard 

96 


Margaret  Fuller 

students,  as  editor  of  the  Dial  co- jointly  with 
Emerson,  her  famous  Boston  "conversaziones," 
her  connection  with  the  New  York  Tribune,  her 
Italian  experiences  with  her  marriage  in  Italy  to 
the  Marquis  Ossoli,  and  her  tragic  death  at  sea 
have  no  place  in  these  memoirs  of  my  boyhood 
days.  With  her  young  brother,  Arthur  Fuller,  I 
attended  on  Nov.  26,  1844,  one  of  the  last  of  her 
six  and  final  series  of  ' "conversaziones"  in  Miss 
Peabody's  rooms,  West  Street,  Boston.  I  cannot 
recall  its  substance  but  I  well  remember  the  deep 
and  fascinating  general  impression  left  upon  my 
young  mind. 

(The  above  is  quoted  from  my  father's  Alcott  Paper  in  his 
handwriting.) 


97 


XI 

HAWTHORNE 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  I  met 
but  twice,  upon  occasions  of  his  visits  to 
the  Alcott  house  in  Concord,  during  my 
first  summer  with  the  family  there  and 
the  second  of  my  acquaintance  with  them.     The 
house  had  been  his  property  and  home  ere  accept 
ing  the  position  of  Collector  of  Customs  at  Salem 
and  his  first  visit  was  in  partial  connection  with 
the  sale  of  this  house  to  his  friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Alcott. 

I  remember  that  he  smiled  and  touched  my  shoul 
der  when  Mr.  Alcott  in  presenting  me  said,  "Na 
thaniel,  this  is  little  Llewellyn."  He  was  a  strik 
ingly  handsome  man,  I  thought,  with  wonderfully 
luminous  eyes.  After  his  departure  Mr.  Alcott 
said  to  me:  "Llewellyn,  that  gentleman  is  a  su 
premely  gifted  writer." 

The  second  occasion  was  some  weeks  later  when 
with  Emerson  he  came  to  tea.  He  touched  my 
shoulder  again  and  said:  "Greeting,  my  boy."  He 
took  little  part  in  the  conversation  and  I  remem 
ber  he  impressed  me  as  a  silent  and  reserved  gen- 

98 


Alcott  Memoirs 

tleman  with  whom  I  thought  it  would  be  very  dif 
ficult  for  a  boy  to  reach  familiar  terms.  His  place 
in  these  memoirs  is  perforce  but  a  recording  of  his 
illustrious  name. 


99 


XII 

THOMAS  STARR  KING 

I    COUNT  it  as  a  high  privilege  to  have  been 
constantly  associated  for  ten  months  of  each 
year  for  four  successive  years  with  Thomas 
Starr  King.     During  this  time  he  prepared 
me  for  Harvard  College  Divinity  School  and  I,  in 
return,  acted  as  his  amanuensis,  writing  at  his  dic 
tation  his  eloquent  sermons,  lectures,  and  inspiring 
magazine  articles. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Harvard  Club  in  Rochester 
in  1912,  I  mentioned  this  fact  to  President  Eliot, 
who  was  present,  when  he  remarked:  "That  was 
a  liberal  education  in  itself." 

Although  Mr.  King  was  but  six  years  my  senior 
his  ability  as  a  sympathetic  instructor  and  his  charm 
of  manner  are  an  abiding  memory  with  me.  Most 
skillfully  did  he  pilot  me  through  the  intricacies  of 
Latin  and  Greek  and  wonderfully  clear,  I  remem 
ber,  were  his  comments  and  elucidations  upon  the 
writings  of  Locke,  Jeffrey,  and  Stuart.  He  many 
times  told  me  that  to  him  the  most  fascinating  study 
in  all  literature  was  that  of  ancient  Greece.  He 
had  the  keenest  admiration  for  a  people  who,  he 

100 


Thomas  Starr  King 

said,  "are  the  first  we  meet  at  the  dawn  of  Euro 
pean  history  and  whose  influence  in  the  arts  of 
sculpture  and  architecture  is  our  keynote  to  the 
beautiful."  It  was  through  Mrs.  Alcott  that  I  was 
originally  brought  in  contact  with  Mr.  King  and 
in  this  presentation  was  born  a  friendship  that 
ceased  only  at  his  death  in  1864,  although  we  never 
met  after  1858,  when  I  removed  to  Coldwater, 
Michigan. 

Thomas  Starr  King  was  truly  an  orator.  He 
wras  slight  of  build,  active  and  agile  of  movement, 
with  expressive  gray  eyes  and  a  wealth  of  blonde 
hair.  I  never  saw  as  beautiful  golden  hair  upon 
a  man's  head.  He  was  neither  a  handsome  nor 
a  homely  man.  He  had  a  most  kindly,  gentle 
speaking  voice  in  every-day  conversation  and  a  con 
stant  winning  smile.  His  whole  scheme  of  life  was 
to  live  "doing  the  right,"  and  I  think  he  succeeded 
as  near  as  any  man  can.  His  heart  was  overflow 
ing  with  benevolent,  tender  thought  for  all  man 
kind  and  the  entire  influence  he  radiated  was  of 
a  high  and  wide  nobility.  His  intellectual  wealth 
was  very  vast  and  constantly  distributed  wherever 
he  went  in  a  seeming  prodigal  manner  with  a  per 
sonal  charm  quite  indescribable.  At  his  home  in 
Burroughs  Place,  Boston,  he  was  like  the  sunlight 
and  as  lovely  as  a  May  flower  in  his  tenderness 
and  devotion  to  his  mother.  I  cannot  recall  an 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

hour  during  the  forty  months  I  was  a  student 
under  him  when  he  was  not  genial,  gentle,  and 
frank.  The  subjects  of  the  sermons  and  lectures 
I  wrote  as  he  dictated  were  very  varied,  full  of 
glowing  and  creative  imagination,  clear  reasoning, 
and  earnest  eloquence.  They  were  practically  de 
livered  as  he  dictated,  requiring  but  the  veriest 
iota  of  editing. 

The  most  brilliant  work  of  his  short  life  was  in 
California.  The  liberal  faith  that  he  went  to  ex 
pound  upon  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  was  languish 
ing  upon  his  arrival  there,  but  in  a  relatively  short 
time  he  built  upon  a  firm  foundation  a  rich  and 
popular  church  and,  ere  his  death,  made  from  its 
pulpit  a  mark  for  all  the  ages  in  favor  of  liberal 
theology.  But  the  most  noble  and  brilliant  work 
he  did  in  California  was  the  personal  influence  he 
brought  to  bear  in  keeping  the  State  loyal  at  the 
time  of  the  Rebellion.  It  has  been  admitted  that 
no  one  single  man  or  issue  wielded  more  powerful 
and  successful  effort  in  this  direction. 

His  biography,  save  in  the  brief  outline  I  have 
given,  has  no  place  in  these  memoirs  yet,  in  a  sense, 
is  a  certain  part  of  them,  for  I  count  his  influence 
upon  my  life  as  one  of  great  good  which,  please 
God,  I  pray  I  have  profited  in  and  by. 

After  his  death  Bret  Harte  wrote  a  poem  which 
gracefully  and  with  lyrical  quality  expresses  the 

102 


Thomas  Starr  King 

man  and  his  work.  It  was  entitled:  "On  a  Pen 
of  Thomas  Starr  King's."  It  seems  to  me  fitting 
that  I  append  it  here: 

This  is  the  reed  the  dead  magician  dropped, 
With  tuneful  magic  in  its  sheath  still  hidden, 
The  prompt  allegro  of  its  music  stopped, 
Its  melodies  unbidden. 

But  who  shall  finish  the  unfinished  strain, 
Or  wake  the  instrument  to  awe  and  wonder, 
And  bid  the  slender  barrel  breathe  again, 
An  organ  pipe  of  thunder? 

His  pen !  what  humble  memoirs  cling  about 
Its  golden  curves !  what  shapes  and  laughing  graces 
Slipped  from  its  point  when  his  full  heart  went  out 
In  smiles  and  courtly  phrases ! 

The  truth,  half  jesting,  half  in  earnest  flung, 
The  word  of  cheer,  with  recognition  in  it; 
The  note  of  alms,  whose   golden   speech  outrung 
The  golden  gift  within  it. 

But  all  in  vain  the  enchanter's  wand  we  wave; 
No  stroke  of  ours  recalls  his  magic  vision; 
The  incantation  that  its   power  gave 
Sleeps  with  the  dead  magician. 


103 


POSTSCRIPT 

THE  INFLUENCES  THAT  MOLD 

FROM  a  mass  of  fascinating  data  cover 
ing  a  wide  range  of  beautifully  recorded 
thought  extending  over  a  period  of 
seventy  years  in  the  life  of  Dr.  Willis, 
I  have  selected,  arranged,  and  classified  the  fore 
going  papers.  I  have  read  vast  quantities  of  mat 
ter,  journals,  essays  and  lectures  upon  many  sub 
jects,  sermons,  philosophical  and  general  comment 
upon  recent  and  by-gone  topics,  in  orderly  sequence 
and  rough  memoranda,  hand  written  upon  all  sorts 
of  paper,  even  in  some  instances  the  backs  of  cor 
respondence  and  envelopes.  I  have  noted  the  form 
ing  hand  of  youth,  the  vigorous  hand  of  manhood, 
the  feeble  hand  of  three  score  and  ten,  the  tremu 
lous  hand  of  an  octogenarian;  and  withal,  never 
failed  to  find  upon  or  between  the  lines,  the  human 
ity  and  integrity  of  the  man,  the  kindliness  and 
courtesy  that  predominated  within  him. 

My  work,  originally  approached  as  an  interest 
ing  literary  task,  developed  into  a  labor  of  love  in 
which  I  have  sensed  very  acutely  a  close  intimacy, 
formed  a  genuine  friendship,  felt  the  true  beauty 

104 


The  Influences  That  Mold 

of  a  personality  with  whom  I  never  had  personal 
contact.  As  amid  the  peace  and  charm  of  this 
beautiful  Seneca  country  I  write  these  words  in 
valediction,  in  a  tiny  cottage  upon  Dr.  Willis's 
acres,  upon  the  shore  of  the  noble  lake  he  loved  full 
well,  within  a  few  minutes'  stepping  from  the  house 
in  which  much  of  his  work  was  accomplished,  the 
aroma  of  all  that  was  good,  and  fine,  and  high,  and 
noble,  yet  most  of  all  kindly  in  the  man,  rises  faintly 
strong  as  a  subtle  perfume  about  me. 

Since  this  little  book  is  but  the  recording  of  Al- 
cott  impressions  and  associations  I  have  perforce 
laid  aside,  not  without  some  effort  and  always  with 
full  regret,  very  much  of  literary  charm  having 
other  application. 

Upon  the  wall  over  my  writing  table  are  two 
memoranda  tremulously  written  upon  the  backs  of 
envelopes  which,  from  their  postmarks,  prove  their 
penciling  less  than  a  year  prior  to  Dr.  Willis's 
death.  They  seem  to  me,  above  all  other  matter, 
the  keynotes  to  his  character,  as  they  seem  to  me 
also  exemplary  of  the  foundation,  upbuilding,  and 
realizations  of  his  life's  aims.  One  bears  directly 
upon  these  memoirs.  The  other  is  the  speaking 
man  to  whom  I  here  pay  tribute: 


"During    the    most    impressionable    period    of    my    youth 
they  had  stimulated  within  me  all  those  nobler   elements  of 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

character  that  I  ever  afterwards  struggled  to  make  the  ruling 
principles  of  my  life." 


"The  old  age  of  heart  and  the  old  age  of  mind  are  the 
only  old  ages  to  be  feared  and  dreaded.  Never  let  them 
trespass  upon  you.  Kindness  and  consideration  in  all  weather 
towards  all  mankind  are  the  armors  against  them." 


Nothing  in  the  writings  of  Dr.  Willis  has  im 
pressed  me  as  this  last  thought  penciled,  no  doubt, 
the  moment  his  mind  formed  it.  And  nothing 
could  make  more  clear  the  fact  of  the  continuity 
of  good  and  evil  through  the  influences  of  other 
lives.  Courtesy,  chivalry,  sympathy,  the  constant 
radiation  of  kindliness  in  a  life,  have  their  direct 
and  indirect  influences  upon  every  other  life  with 
whom  it  comes  in  contact.  It  requires  no  great 
stretch  of  imagination,  then,  to  see  and  understand 
that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alcott,  their  home  life,  their 
mutual  high  ideals,  the  motherly,  loving  nature  of 
the  woman,  the  liberal  theology  and  gentle  philos 
ophy  of  the  man,  made  Dr.  Willis  what  he  was 
and  through  his  mental  inheritance  from  them,  in 
turn  influenced  for  betterment,  for  emancipation, 
for  uplift,  the  hundreds  of  other  lives  with  whom 
in  a  dual  professional  capacity  he  came  in  contact. 

Here  was  an  old  man  as  measured  in  years,  yet 
ever  young  in  an  eternal  youth  of  mind  and  heart. 

106 


The  Influences  That  Mold 

Here  was  constant  kindliness  from  boyhood 
through  manhood  to  nearly  fifteen  years  past  the 
allotted  three  score  and  ten.  Here  was  full  exem 
plification  that  with  these  qualities  there  is  for  any 
of  us  but  the  mere  old  age  of  years.  And  here  too 
is  proof  inviolate  that  all  the  millions  of  the  earth 
hold  within  keeping  the  means  to  these  ends.  There 
is  no  man  in  any  clime  but  can  ever  be  as  young 
as  the  beauty  of  a  Spring  morning,  as  full  of  radi 
ance  and  gentle  vigor  as  the  new  leaves  and  blos 
soms  upon  the  apple  and  cherry  trees  rising  in 
charming  beauty  upon  the  Glenora  hills  behind  me. 

As  in  Dr.  Willis  so  in  every  one  of  us,  lives  the 
manna  which,  mocking  at  mere  years,  can  nourish 
a  lifelong  youth.  For  the  earnest  seeker  this  youth 
of  the  head  and  the  heart  is  as  easily  found  as  a 
wild  violet  in  May.  But  brush  aside  the  leaves  of 
envy,  malice,  greed,  anger,  and  ruthless  ambition, 
and  the  violets  of  human  love  are  found  waiting 
with  drooping  stem  ready,  if  watered  from  the 
springs  of  human  kindness,  to  arise  in  simple  glory. 
Ever  within  the  soul  this  undrying  spring  awaits, 
to  be  uncovered  by  a  kindly  smile,  a  kindly  word, 
a  kindly  deed,  a  loving  and  unselfish  action. 

No  man  lives  but  has  at  his  command  that  which 
is  perpetual  law  to  a  flower.  Not  a  flower  blooms 
that  does  not  say :  do  something  to  express  the  beau 
tiful.  Not  a  breath  of  a  flower's  incense  reaches  a 

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Alcott  Memoirs 

nostril  that  does  not  say:  breathe  out  the  inner 
life  in  some  act  of  gentleness. 

To  carry  into  daily  life,  no  matter  what  its 
sphere,  the  comprehension  that  the  most  apparently 
unimportant  expression  may  be  kindly  uttered  is 
pregnant  with  deep  meaning.  To  his  intimates  it 
was  Emerson's  personality  more  than  his  giant  in 
tellect  that  made  them  love  him. 

To  translate  love  into  simple  action  means  a 
magical  transformation  in  mental  horizon.  Dull, 
commonplace,  prosaic  things  are  touched  as  by  a 
magician's  wand.  A  "smile  follows  as  the  night 
the  day."  Labor,  physical  or  mental,  ceases  to  be 
a  burden,  a  mere  bread-winning  thing.  Every  task, 
high  or  low,  menial  or  supreme,  will  then  point  to 
a  high  nobility.  To  feel  and  understand  this  law 
of  love  means  knowledge,  which  also  means  for 
bearance,  which  spells  kindliness.  By  a  law  of 
spiritual  gravitation  this  kindliness  will  mingle  with 
kindliness  in  others,  assimilate  it,  diffuse  itself,  re 
turn  to  the  giver  as  "bread  upon  the  waters,"  soften 
lives  that  are  cold,  hard,  stern,  concerned  only  with 
selfish  to-days,  and  create  here  in  this  life  a  real 
to-morrow. 

HENRI  BAZIN. 

Hope  Cottage,  Glenora,  N.  Y. 
May,  1915. 


108 


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) 


FORM  NO.  DD6 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


U.C.BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


